Hugo Schwyzer

I’m in the office early on a Monday morning after a brief and happy Easter weekend visit with my family in Northern California. Details on the holiday below.

Mine is a deeply secular family. A few of us became serious Christians as adults, but the bulk of the clan tends towards a vaguely benevolent agnosticism, often expressed in a deep affection for the liturgy and the traditions of the Episcopal church. I don’t talk much about religion with my loved ones, not because to do so would be to invite a quarrel, but because it tends to expose a gulf that, most of the time, we enjoy pretending isn’t there.

Certain rituals have been part of my life for as long as I can remember, chief among them the dyeing of eggs the day before Easter. The fact that my wife and I are now vegans has in no way diminished our enthusiasm for coloring the shells of what we will not eat! This past Saturday, as on so many countless Easter eves before, we set up a large folding table on the porch of the “old house” at the family Ranch. We covered the table with newspaper, and placed the bowls of bright blue, yellow, red, green, pink, and orange dye (food coloring and vinegar) about. The youngest dyer this year was a mature ten; the oldest (my mother), an immensely experienced seventy. My wife, celebrating her fifth Easter in the bosom of my large and eccentric family, brought a certain elegantly Latin flair to the otherwise WASPish proceeding.

Four dozen hard-boiled eggs were dyed. This was a low count; we’ve had as many as seven dozen before. As we were only anticipating six or seven truly committed hunters for Easter, we restrained ourselves. Of course, we also hide plastic eggs, filled with jelly beans and M&Ms and that sort of thing. My mother and I stuffed another five dozen plastic eggs, meaning that in total, just over 100 items were ready for hiding on Easter morning.

I did an eight-mile trail run on Easter morning, having fortified myself with a vegan Hot Cross bun, a banana, and my mother’s coffee. (Mom’s coffee would make a sailor wince; she’s from the “it should be so strong the spoon stands up” school of java brewing.) I wanted to do more than eight miles, but had lingered too long in bed, and had to make sure I was back in time to perform what has been one of my favorite holiday tasks since high school: playing Easter bunny, and taking charge of egg-hiding.

When we have very small hunters, we place eggs in obvious places, like the center of lawns. But since our hunters this year ranged in age from 8-13, with no toddlers in the crew, we were well-posiitoned for a challenging layout. The Easter Bunny, assisted by his bride, placed the 100 plastic and hard-boiled eggs in and around perhaps an acre and a half of space, encompassing a croquet lawn, a swimming pool, and a small orchard. I had great fun wedging eggs into branches, and felt only a little guilty when my cousin Fanny (age twelve and very athletic), tumbled out of a tree while trying to retrieve one particularly well-placed plastic orb. (Fanny suffered the temporary symptoms of a hip pointer, but rallied quickly.)

During the hunt, the adults form two groups. Parents with cameras shadow their children, documenting the frantic search for loot. Others — either with children too old for hunting or without any serious interest in watching kids trample things — stay in the shade, eating nuts and aspic and drinking that staple drink of Easter, savagely strong Bloody Marys.

It is axiomatic that one or two eggs are never found. The various ranch dogs are restrained before and during the hunt, but once the children have left the field, the hounds are turned loose. Soon enough, “Buddy” (a yellow lab) emerged from some tall grass, making satisfying crunching sounds with his jaws. My best work as Easter bunny confounded half a dozen clever children and tweens, but there’s no hiding anything for long from a determined, egg-loving labrador.

Before we left for the long drive back down to Pasadena, we played a multi-generational wiffle ball match. I’ve been trying to succeed at wiffle ball since the Watergate era, but I’m still hopeless. I became a decent runner because I had such poor hand-eye coordination; yesterday, I dropped two pop flys and reached base only once, on an error. The one decent ball I struck out of the infield was caught cleanly for an out by my wife, who cackled with pleasure at denying me what I felt ought to have been a double.

Where was Christ in this Easter? I could say I thought of Him as I hid the eggs or struggled to reach base, but that would be a lie. My time with Jesus came when I was alone, pounding up the steepest part of the Sunol trail in the early hours of the Resurrection morning. If you had been on the lower slopes of Mission Peak about 7:30AM yesterday, you might have seen me, slow and sweaty and determined, holding the best pace I could, singing (if that’s the word) “St. Patrick’s Breastplate.” Me and Jesus, we had our morning time together, and it was good.