Happy Easter

And what is going on with the Easter Bunny?

Most religious people would shudder in disgust if they were to witness me going about my day-to-day life. Whilst forced to attend chapel throughout school, I scratched off my black nail polish and scratched devil insignia into the wood of the pews. Only once did I walk to the front to kneel and be blessed. That was when Desmond Tutu himself was offering the blessing. Our reverend glared at me with unsurprised disdain and shook her head slowly. I had spent every ‘divinity’ class asking her about the biological logistics of Eve coming from Adam’s rib. I was only satisfied when she told us to take what God says, ‘with a bucket of salt’.

My atheist/agnostic/spiritual parents, whose ancestry can be traced to orthodox Judaism and even an Anglican priest, raised us as areligious monsters. It was up to us to choose - whilst we were also made very unsubtly aware what they thought about people who piously committed their lives to a religion or a God and gave of themselves - flesh and blood and soul - to this selfless, devoted belief in something they could not see. I was unceremoniously pulled out of ‘Jewish Studies’ when learning to read Hebrew resulted in me attempting to read English backwards.

Had I truly been drawn to the Church of Christ or the Baha’i faith (who seem great) or Islam or any other religion, I am sure my parents would have supported it. They would not have kept a kosher nor halal household but, they wouldn’t have thrown me out, like many so sadly do when their children refuse religion. Anyway, the point is that Easter has never meant much to me. As a child, it was a time to find and eat chocolate, which was marvellous. I can still taste the white Woolworths Easter eggs on my tongue from London in my late 20s. They are truly the superior Easter egg.

This brings me to my most important point. ‘Easter egg’. What? The idea is that a large bunny rabbit hops about laying eggs. The eggs it lays are chocolate, of course. But, there is a huge rabbit out there…laying eggs. I do not have the religious knowledge to maybe supply some rationale or sense to this scenario. Maybe that is why the whole ‘huge secret rabbit laying hidden, chocolate eggs’ thing feels very freaky-deaky to me. My cousin and I got into a very detailed discussion about this once, and we frankly never recovered.

Easter, would never be the same. Arguably, it is weirder than an old bearded man coming down your chimney in the dead of night to leave devotions at your sleeping feet. It is weirder, even, than ingesting the ‘FLESH’ and drinking the ‘BLOOD’ of a man who died so that we could all be acquitted of our pleasure seeking, sinful, mortal, human urges. But, I didn’t come here to get into the thick of it. Just, to wonder about the Easter Bunny.

My partner comes from a kind, loving, wonderful family who brings each other delicious Easter eggs. So, he brought us cream eggs to be eaten in front of the TV after supper. I was alarmed that, when biting the top of the chocolate egg off, I looked inside to discover some white gooey sweet stuff with a dark yellow circle in the middle! Just like a real egg yolk. I was confused, appalled, shocked and disgusted.

It is with this, that I wish those who celebrate a Happy Easter. I hope that the massive bunny man who is creeping around your garden, leaves you a very fruitful stash of chocolate eggs this year, hidden in your bushes and branches. I hope that you have a wonderful long weekend and that Woolworths restocks their white Easter eggs immediately, before the panicking moms on my Instagram fully lose it. x