When I grew up, we always had our chickens, and we ate our eggs

Host: The sunset lay low over the fields, pouring its last light across the worn planks of the old farmhouse porch. The air was thick with the smell of earth, hay, and distant smoke from a woodstove that had been burning all day. Out beyond the tall grass, a few chickens pecked lazily at the ground, indifferent to philosophy or memory.

Inside, the kitchen glowed in shades of amber and nostalgia — pots simmering, glass jars lined along shelves, and the faint hum of a radio murmuring an old folk tune. Jeeny sat at the wooden table, a small bowl of fresh eggs before her, their shells still flecked with straw. Across from her, Jack poured himself a cup of coffee, the steam curling upward like thoughts he wasn’t ready to voice.

Jeeny: “You know what Isabella Rossellini once said?”

Jack: “I’m sure you’re about to tell me.”

Jeeny: (smiling) “‘When I grew up, we always had our chickens, and we ate our eggs, and we ate our chickens. The family always had a pig, and we would kill it at Christmas and eat it for three or four months afterwards.’”

Jack: “That’s not philosophy. That’s breakfast.”

Jeeny: “It’s more than breakfast. It’s memory. It’s the rhythm of living with what you grow.”

Host: The radio faded, replaced by the distant cluck of hens outside, the steady ticking of the kitchen clock. Time itself seemed slower here — ancient, cyclical, forgiving.

Jack: “You romanticize it. Back then, they didn’t have a choice. You raised what you ate, you used what you had. No mystery, no meaning — just survival.”

Jeeny: “Maybe survival was meaning.”

Jack: “Or maybe meaning is just something we invent when survival gets too easy.”

Host: He leaned back in his chair, the wood creaking softly beneath him, eyes drifting toward the window where twilight painted the fields in slow blue strokes.

Jeeny: “Don’t you ever miss that kind of simplicity? A life you could taste, touch, feed?”

Jack: “You mean a life that didn’t scroll, didn’t refresh, didn’t deliver in 24 hours?”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Jack: “I’d last maybe three days.”

Jeeny: “You think you’re too modern to live that way.”

Jack: “I think I’ve forgotten how.”

Host: She cracked an egg into a bowl — the golden yolk sliding out with a quiet perfection. The smell of warmth and home filled the space.

Jeeny: “You know, Rossellini wasn’t just talking about food. She was talking about intimacy — with work, with nature, with time. When you raise something from birth, feed it, care for it, and then eat it, you learn something sacred.”

Jack: “Sacred?”

Jeeny: “Yes. The cycle. The acceptance that life feeds life. That death isn’t a tragedy — it’s continuity.”

Jack: “That’s a pretty philosophy for a brutal fact.”

Jeeny: “Maybe brutality is sacred, too, if you face it honestly.”

Host: Jack took a sip of coffee, staring into its dark surface as if it might reflect something he’d lost.

Jack: “You sound like my grandmother. She used to keep a pig, too. Named it George. Fed it scraps. Talked to it every morning like it was a friend.”

Jeeny: “And then?”

Jack: “Christmas came.”

Jeeny: (gently) “And she cried?”

Jack: “Yeah. Every year. But she still did it. Because she believed if you were going to eat, you had to earn it. Death meant something. Food meant something.”

Host: His voice softened, the weight of memory slipping in like dust through a cracked window.

Jeeny: “We’ve lost that. Now it’s plastic packages and distant farms. We eat without gratitude, kill without reverence. Everything comes easy — and easy things rarely mean anything.”

Jack: “You think going back would fix that?”

Jeeny: “Not going back. Remembering.”

Jack: “Remembering what?”

Jeeny: “That everything we consume — time, love, food — was alive once.”

Host: Outside, the first stars began to appear, faint against the bruised horizon. The chickens had gone quiet, the world settling into the calm hum of rural dusk.

Jack: “You know, I used to think progress meant leaving all that behind — the dirt, the chores, the noise. Now I’m not sure what we left it for.”

Jeeny: “We traded touch for speed.”

Jack: “And connection for convenience.”

Jeeny: “And we’re still hungry.”

Host: The line hung there, honest and aching.

Jack: “You think Rossellini missed it? The chickens, the pig, the seasons?”

Jeeny: “I think she understood that beauty hides in the ordinary. That a life measured in small labors is still a masterpiece.”

Jack: “And now we measure life in productivity.”

Jeeny: “Which is just labor without love.”

Host: She began whisking the eggs, the sound rhythmic, almost like music — the small, unglamorous melody of daily life.

Jack watched her for a moment, then set his cup down and smiled faintly.

Jack: “You know, you could’ve been happy on a farm.”

Jeeny: “I would’ve been happy anywhere that needed my hands.”

Jack: “And me?”

Jeeny: “You’d have complained about the smell, then built a barn out of perfection and pride.”

Jack: “Sounds about right.”

Host: The kitchen light flickered slightly, and the air filled with the faint hiss of butter hitting a hot pan. The smell — rich, simple, timeless — seemed to wrap around them like memory itself.

Jeeny: “Do you know what I think is most beautiful about what she said?”

Jack: “What?”

Jeeny: “That it wasn’t nostalgia. It was gratitude. She wasn’t longing for the past. She was honoring the way it shaped her.”

Jack: “That’s rare — gratitude without regret.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s the real wisdom of people who live close to the earth. They don’t separate beauty from necessity. The same hands that kill also nurture. The same life that ends becomes sustenance.”

Host: Jack nodded slowly, his eyes drifting again to the darkening window — his reflection layered against the quiet outline of the farm beyond.

Jack: “You think we’ll ever live that honestly again?”

Jeeny: “Maybe not as a world. But as people? We could try. Start small. Grow something. Share something. Bless the hands that feed you — even if they’re your own.”

Host: The first sizzle of eggs filled the silence. The room glowed soft and golden, the way only kitchens do when they’re full of truth.

Jack: “You know,” he said, his voice low, “for all our noise and technology, it’s still the simple things that feel like grace.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. That’s what she knew. That’s what every real life knows — you tend, you give, you take, you thank.”

Host: The two of them sat in the warmth of that understanding — two modern souls tasting the humility of old wisdom.

Outside, the night settled over the fields, quiet and alive. The last of the light glowed faintly on the horizon, as if the earth itself were exhaling.

And in that kitchen, with the smell of food and rain and history between them, the world seemed suddenly full again — not of luxury, but of meaning.

Because, as Rossellini once reminded the world,
the beauty of life isn’t found in what we make new —
but in how deeply we remember what once sustained us.