Following a three-day intensive in Dream Tending and Deep Imagination, I recorded a dream about cosmic egg soup. A week later, I'm processing the nourishment this dream image gives me.
A massive egg floats in space. It's been hard-boiled and sliced in half. The yolk is rich, more orange than yellow. The firm white portion is hollowed out and forms a cauldron where a raw egg and star-dust batter is about to be poured. The batter twinkles, the cauldron bubbles. The egg, floating among cosmic gasses (yes, gas, you snickering citizens of Tittweaking) is both the vessel and the food. Somehow, I know it will be delicious, stellar, and dessert-like.
I can still feel the anticipation of cosmic egg soup. What it is remains open to exploration among the stars where it originates. I want to eat it, slurp it, and unravel its mystery. It smells inviting, promising, invigorating. Is it an answer? Did the egg come first? Is it an intergalactic joke? So much to question, and yet what I do know is this -- I'm starting to climb out of a long and dark hole. Instead of feeling overwhelmed and fighting dread, I'm hungry for what next.
I have gained clarity and I'm tackling tasks without the brain fog of forgetfulness and worry. I've faced the underworld and have returned with an appetite. For two weeks I've held my own with the VA medical system, even daring to add more responsibilities to the plate I cleared before Todd and I drove 4,000 miles to Nevada and back in the dead of winter. Before we left, I knew what I wanted to "try to do," but now I feel ready "to do" again. I'm like the hollowed out part of the cosmic egg ready to receive an infusion of soul-knitting soup.
Have you ever had seasons of your life where no matter what you did, the season was going to run its course? Mind you, I believe our frame of mind and hearts impacts our experiences when we have no control over circumstances and outcomes. I believe in cultivating a positive (growth) mindset. As Seph Fontane Pennock, co-founder of PositivePsychology.com, wrote is a recent newsletter:
And so the real value of experiencing positive emotions isn't in how they make us feel in the moment; it's in how they help us build functional reserves we can draw on to improve coping as and when we need it.
Seph Fontane Pennock, 2024
I'm expanding my belief in a positive mindset to make room for the hollowing out necessary to grow something new. Maybe this last year, these last 12 years, were not to deplete my reserves but to make way for a new egg I hadn't even imagined, yet. The return over and over to community, creativity, beauty, and love spiced a new batter waiting to become part of the bubbling soup cauldron. Maybe cosmic egg soup is evidence of functioning reserves, not a depletion.
Whatever it is, I'm feeling more free and hopeful than I have in a very long time. I can see a path inviting my steps, and goals begin to glitter once again, losing their intimidating shadows. I feel an acceptance of what is as something simple and not sinister. Todd and I are joking with each other in happy ways, not out of a space of fear. Spider Bones no longer sits on my chest, but settles outside of my bio field seen, but no longer driving my anxiety. Ol' Spidey even accompanies my travels and writing.
Slowly, deliberately, I'm returning to the familiar parts of myself with renewal and purpose.
For now, I'm facing the challenges of "brain insults" which has become my new favorite descriptor to explain Todd's complex health conditions. I'm buoyed with support from my community, CLF Peer Mentor, caregiver lifelines, Warrior Sisters, therapist, Dream Triad, Sixter, doggos, and Todd who is facing life and death on his own terms as we each are called to do. This literary community fills me with wonder, inspiration, and company along the trails of the writing life. As we write collectively each week, we are making inroads to deep space where cosmic egg soup becomes something particular to each of us. We are trusting our literary art to a community container we call a collection each week.
We are egg openers.
I'd also like to share a hopeful message from a documentary about brain healing and based on a book penned by a veteran with blast injuries. The important message is that with brains like butter, they do receive insults in many ways, not just professional sports or combat. Be aware. Learn. Have hope -- brains can also heal. New pathways can replace damaged ones.
We have a hopeful new neurosurgeon on the horizon and may find our way to a CTE brain expert yet. She's the first to not scoff at Todd's request to see a CTE expert and even told me to get her a name and she'd put in a referral, something no other VA doc has been willing to do in six years of requesting. As I was looking up a few items this morning on her Brain and Spine website, I took time to read her bio. It's no coincidence that she's a graduate of the medical school on Grenada where Todd received injuries, saving American students on that very campus. He had no idea at the time of the impact it would have on his brain. Or that a helpful doctor would later graduate from that particular campus.
There are no coincidences. Maybe it's all cosmic egg soup! Go crack an egg and follow where it leads you.
February 20, 2024, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about a cosmic egg soup. Is it something new on the menu or the deep horizon? Who is making the soup and why? Who will it feed and how will it change the story? Be inventive, imaginative, or playfully serious. Go where the prompt leads!
- Submit by February 26, 2024. Please use the form below if you want to be published in the weekly collection. The Collection publishes on the Thursday following the next Challenge. Stories must be 99 words. Rules & Guidelines.
- Writers retain all copyrights to any stories published at Carrot Ranch.
- A website or social media presence is not required to submit. A blog or social media link will be included in the title of any story submitted with one.
- Please include your byline with your title on one line. Example: Little Calves by Charli Mills. Your byline can be different from your name.
- Please include the hashtag #99WordStories when sharing either the Challenge or Collection posts on social media.
Glad you’re feeling better. I’m about to cook eggs for my breakfast but can’t as yet imagine them in soup 😉
Thanks, Anne. Eggs for breakfast are among my favorites. I like mine soft scrambled in a pat of melted butter with a dollop of cream — but definitely not soupy! How do you prepare yours? Do you like Thai food? Thai chicken soup with hard boiled eggs is tasty. Well, I know you can imagine a story around eggs in soup!
A spokesperson for the Little Tittweaking Gas Company issued a statement saying everyone has been blown away by their inclusion in this esteemed publication and apologises to its customers for the temporary suspension of its emissions as it waits for everyone to come back
A gracious, if not sulfurous, response, Geoff! The air will clear…
I like the sound of your hopefilled and fuelled cosmic egg soup. I’m still in the bottom of the soup being swirled around, but I’ll make my way back to the top soon. I just need a little more time. I’m pleased you’re employing that wonderful pair: positive attitude and growth mindset. Here’s to more positivity and growth this year.
Ah, that explains much, Norah. We are swimming around in the deep space of soup, but when hope becomes buoyant, we float to the top. Or maybe we outgass with those from Little Tittweaking Gas Company and find relief. Here’s to positivity and growth this year down under and up over!
I like that hope makes us buoyant, Charli. What a lovely image. Not so lovely the Tittweaking over-abundance of gas. ????
Ha, ha! We rise above the stench, Norah!
The video is great news. You have to have hope, Charli, and you have to find the right person who can push those boundaries and make it happen.
Absolutely, Jo! I’m reminded that even when we receive a thousand no’s all we need is one yes. #HavingHope!
Sending prayers for hopeful news and excellent outcomes!
The kids and I enjoy cosmic soup! There’s a charming Korean place that opened recently, and we go there when we have a bit of discretionary cash. (They make amazing bubble tea, too. Great! Now I’m hungry! haha!)
Now I’m hungry, Kerry! One of my “go-to” dinners is a Korean recipe Sheet Pan Bulgogi over steamed rice. Found the recipe here: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/281136/easy-sheet-pan-beef-bulgogi/. Bubble tea is something I haven’t had, yet! Thanks!
Charli,
Positive outlooks and outcomes are always good. I’ve often enjoyed Eggdrop soup… but a whole or cut boiled egg in a soup? Not so much. I went with what I saw out the window… with a 99 word haibun; I Will Follow You…
Yes, they help to get us through. Jules, I love the poetic painting you did with egg soup!
“Where’d these eggs come from, Pal?”
“Jeez, Kid, ya really are a greenhorn. They come from hens!”
“I know eggs come from hens, Pal. Jist didn’t know we had hens at the ranch.”
“Free-range hens! Here they come now, a-scritchin an a-scratchin. There’s Stella. An Spacy; Venus; Astro; Cosmo; Comet…”
“Sound like cosmic hens, Pal.”
“Yep. Where d’ya think cosmic eggs come from?”
“It ain’t been a nebulous concept, Pal, but I still ain’t sure which comes first, chickens or eggs.”
“Ain’t gittin inta thet, Kid. Bring thet basket a eggs inside fer me would ya?”
“Sure. Oops. Soup.”
Kid has found the most common way to make egg soup, lol! Yet, we’ve all experienced the scritchen and scratchin that comes from pondering deep cosmic soupy thoughts. Hey — great hen names, too!
I can’t read this without wondering about the “Chicken Schift” book on the Navy vessell.
Better that book be on the sub than Kid. But yeah, you’re right, my literary paths crossed! How eggciting. Maybe that’s why I was also thinking about that submarine. It’s very cool to me that my book is there, and they have so little down there, they might just read it.
I wonder if re-reading a book in confined limited space adds to greater comprehension or deep philosophical epiphanies? Maybe a mariner will want to go write poetry and raise chickens afterward.