Good eggs and ham

I hate my face. It looks like an egg. I hate the up-angled foreshortening and the extra skin apparent when I look down. 

When did that happen?

Maybe I should have applied something bronzing to counteract the pallor. Or at least fill in the tiny lines between my eyes that look so much deeper these days than just skin level. 

Or maybe dip myself in some colorful dye like we used to do with eggs before we'd scatter them around the house for the kids to find ... or not find as our noses would lead the detective work some weeks later. 

Even more so, perhaps, I hate the crackling, tinny sound of my voice as it completes its circuit through the air and into a microphone and back out of the speakers of the technical clamshell that's open on my bed.

I can think of another space that's as comfortable, or private, or lacking a buildup of clutter. 

But I miss the social part of keeping a physical distance. And apparently, I miss it enough to brave all vanity and meet friends and family in the only room that can hold us all - a video chat room.

But here we are ... some of us sitting at our dining room tables; others sitting at our home office desks; and me, leaning up against an armchair pillow, trying to stay within a shadow.

We are talking about, of all things, how to celebrate Easter with our close family. 

And while I marvel at the age we live in where those among us with means and privilege can stay virtually connected while remaining -- for the most part -- isolated, I must also wonder how we will square ourselves with the reality that seems now, and for the foreseeable future, we are to remain distant relatives. 

We are long past the phase when we'd gather in the village square to meet a six-foot-tall Easter rabbit, who would lead a hundred teacup-sized neighbors in the annual hunt for candy-filled eggs. 

These past years the bunny tosses a few bags of jelly beans and rice-crisp eggs into a tote bag and hangs it from the knobs of their bedroom doors.

This year the bunny had to scramble at the last minute but had an anxiety attack at the grocery store and a moment of clarity. Hanging from the doorknob will be boxes of cereal and hand soaps that look like rocks. 

Must remind them the faux stones are not candy; and hot dogs, this year, we'll call ham.

Perhaps it will come up at dinner when we serve up this new tradition - of mystery meat via video chat. 

I can picture it now: we'll toast each other while reminding my dad to keep to some semblance of social distancing in front of the camera, so the rest of us can see more than his nose and forehead.

It will be horrible and wonderful, and everything we'd never imagined all wrapped up in one.

And maybe, if we're lucky, the bunny will find TP for our Easter Baskets.