I've had feathered friends on the brain lately. Last week, the raven; this week, the chicken. (Perhaps a peacock post next week to round out the series?)
Three things have occurred to me about chickens, specifically:
- Their bum rap, or how I had pegged them wrong all these years;
- Chicken nuggets—of wisdom and serene philanthropy, that is;
- Chicken couture, encompassing accessories and—praise be rapscallion ingenuity!—chicken diapers. A bum wrap of a different sort.
I am gratified you know me well enough to know I have not been thinking of chickens as an app most common to humankind: drumsticks. I've said it before, I'll say it again. I do not blog about food.
Back when my dwelling was in a 7,000-island republic in the Far East, animal rights was an alien concept. If humans lived in cardboard boxes along the freeway and galvanized tin ramshackle huts by a stagnant river, how could anyone expect animal shelters? Dogs were underfed gadabouts, expertly dodging traffic. Cockfights were an afternoon pastime. (I speak in the past tense, although these conditions still exist.)
My childhood impression of chickens, consequently, is heavily shaded by scenes of violence and survival strategy. My childhood friend John B sent me this picture of a rooster bred to fight to the death. (It was not Born to be Alive.) It illustrates a series of verses—let's not insult poets by calling it poetry—scribbled on a vexing afternoon when I was 16.
Chicken's Lament
by Scrollwork
Something set me off, careening
And I didn't know when to stop
Screeching, scratching and insisting
My opinion was on top.
Oh! good grief, Mother Hen
It's my neck upon the block
For I've done it once again—
dared defy the dreaded flock.
I'll be cubed into a bouillon
Chopped and locked into a freezer
Challenging the crowd's opinion
Only made me lose my temper.
Poultry squabbles make me weary
Wish I had my eggshell back
Now my feeling's kinda eerie
Am I sure I'm not a duck?
(John B also sent this picture.)
I lived a somewhat tormented life between 16 and 46. Being opinionated and outspoken earns big honking demerits when you're a) young b) the youngest, and c) a woman in male-dominated domestic and corporate cockpits.
At 47 I crossed the road (with a swift kick to my booty), began building my own roost, and finally made peace with my quirkiness. I went from "Am I sure I'm not a duck?" to "I am my own chicken. Peck on that."
Not surprisingly, my view of chickens is now comfy-cozy-warm-and-fuzzy. I apologize to the chicken collective for my earlier wrongheaded stereotyping (which all stereotyping is). Mine is now a mindset that leans toward goodwill toward global cohabitants.
In perfect serendipity, artist Kristin Love's Namaste Yoga Birdie Dish positioned itself in my line of sight.
"This "Namaste" dish is one of the pieces I have established for Charity Donations in conjunction with The Etsy Mud Team. We are working together to raise support and donations for our fellow potters in Japan, specifically in the historic pottery village of Mashiko, which was hard hit by the recent earthquake..."
In addition to my expanded vision, I have developed a capacity for appreciating details beneath the surface made apparent only from the scratch and peck that chickens engage in. And sometimes I find solutions right under my nose.
I'd been frustrated in my search for the right-sized S-hooks to rig a thread spool holder from an expandable garden trellis. I'd bought and returned S-hooks that were too thick for spools to perch on. A few minutes ago, I clicked on a post titled Chicken Socks on Scratch and Peck, illustrator Lauren Scheuer's blog. The title caught my eye because I was researching chicken couture, the third bullet for this post.
Lauren wrote about fashioning S-hooks from the tops of wire hangers to hang up treats for her girls. How many times had I stood in my laundry room and looked right through those wire hangers? My spools are gonna love their new roost.
BTW, I love how in chicken sub-culture they call them "the girls." They also have creative individual names. Blogger Josh Elliot of The Occasional Chicken calls his girls Noodle Soup, Salad Sandwich, and Pot Pie. What would you call yours if you had one?
One can never take oneself too seriously around chickens. A misstep? The key is to recover gracefully. An excellent example of mishap makeover is this Sunny Side (or Which Came First) brooch from etsy seller An Embellished Life. She made it from a damaged vintage egg cover. I am charmed beyond measure. People from the Vintage Ages liked to have covers for everything, and they were quaint as well as elegant. A far cry from the broomstick handle and toilet paper roll covers of my childhood.
On the subject of mishaps, I must quit pussyfooting around the chicken diaper issue. It is of course only an issue if you keep indoor chickens.
The best exposition on the concept is the following excerpt from "We Aint' Chicken with our Chicken Any More" on The Chicken Whisperer:
A nappie that a chicken wears when outside of its coop.
A proper little catch-all to collect the chicken's poop
We got this rooster that we've raised from an egg.
It's hard fer us to shut him out when that rooster starts to beg.
He likes to be inside with us, but we've found it' ain't no joke
We ain't got him trained yet. He ain't reliably housebroke.
So we bought this chicken diaper with instructions how to use
The little garment on our bird to cover its caboose.
I really just wanted an excuse to post my verses, Chicken's Lament. But look what lovely finds emerged! From the sublime to the absurd, as they say. In bloggy world, they also say that content curation is the new black. How I resisted! My blog looks good in black.
Now I'm hoping my favorite author, Samantha Sotto, pops in and posts in the comment section that soon-to-be-famous chicken-related quote from the hero in her upcoming novel, Before Ever After.
Happy clucks to you.
Coming back from his regular pre-dawn walk the day after Easter, the hubby spied a sidewalk spectacle: a moribund crow with an equally dead crayfish still firmly clamped in its beak. Hubby tried to get me to go with him to photograph the sorry sight, but I convinced him he could do the job just as well. He came back with several shots, all good.
If you're like most people, your body goes through a predictable pattern when confronted with the unexpected sight of a dead body: recoil, look away, catch your breath, sneak another look. Then stare. The train wreck effect.
Then you try to make sense of what your senses are feeding you. Here's this being that once was and now isn't. In this case, there were two of them.
Questions, questions. A duel to the death. Who died first, the crayfish or the crow? (Which came first, the chicken or the egg?)
How can I tell if this is a raven or a crow? Part of me hoped it was a raven so I could quote Edgar Allan Poe: "Quoth the raven: 'Nevermore.' " I had to look it up. Apparently, the bill on a crow curves downward. This must be a raven. It oozes dignity in death. And a little creepiness for good measure.
How long could this bird have lived if it had lived its natural span? My online source records a raven that lived 40 years, although 10-15 years is more common.
This raven's eyes, shuttered now, had seen a few things in its time. For the rest of the day I took more than a passing interest in the sights still available to my eyes.
This blood-red bougainvillea clambers up a trellis outside the local Target store. Had the raven seen it, or was it always preoccupied with pursuing prey and evading predators?
I have a particular fondness for bougainvillea because my father grew them in an array of colors when we lived on an air force base in the Philippines. They're so sensitive to frost, which is why I haven't attempted to replicate Dad's garden. How does Target's landscaper manage to keep this healthy specimen alive?
In the wildflower patch that reseeded itself behind my house, the California poppies, calendula and other blooms are a riot of color. The wind was blowing full blast when I took the photos, so these were among the few without blur.
When the Mexican primroses are spent, I'll have to weedwhack the entire thatch to the ground. It seems a savage way to repay their valiant effort, but they must make way for new growth. I'm not sure this philosophy applies to the raven, though. Did the rest of the ravens benefit from his exit? (And oh! did you know the poetic term for a flock of ravens is a "murder of ravens"? Random fact.)
The johnny jump-ups had a near-death experience they lived to tell about. It seems the hubby went up on the roof to dismantle the anachronistic TV antenna. Rather than lower the entire assemblage to the ground, he flung it off the roof. It landed with a satisfying (to him) crash, barely missing their little purple and yellow heads. Here, they've settled down from asking each other "What just happened?"
I had no idea TV antennas could be so salvageable. Those aluminum rods are pliable enough to refashion into a trellis for this season's morning glories. Heaven-sent supplies! Or at least hubby-sent. I've soaked the seeds to prepare them for planting.
On our sunset stroll, the hubby and I came across the spot where the raven lay in state. It seems his passing did not go unmarked.
We ended the day as we began it: marking life, death, and everything necessary in between.
Today, a young woman left a very thoughtful and thought-provoking comment in an earlier post on rose-colored glasses.
...I love writing and reading but at this stage of my life it really doesn't do anything to ease the injustices of global issues such as famine and poverty. Which is the same for everyone with creative pursuits (and often non-creative too)!
I'm even considering giving up studying philosophy and literature to do something to help the world more directly, like somehow defending human rights without becoming a lawyer!
Serendipitously, a friend of mine posted a link on Facebook that led me to discover this video.
When you watched it, did you notice the woman didn't give the blind beggar any coins? She has a gift for words, and she knew how to meet his need with it. She rewrote the man's sign, putting it in terms that pierced the consciences of passers-by and awakened appreciation for the sight they have that he does not.
"It's a beautiful day, and I can't see it."
That's what moved people and unclogged an outpouring of generosity. Did it cost the woman anything? Not in cents, but in the time she took to prepare her gift for that moment in time. Even when she had no way of knowing that one day she could be useful in just that way.
As a child I scoffed at "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." Sure they did! A lot! They weren't "just" words. They got me in trouble. Still do. (In my dotage, of course, I realize that the sticks-and-stones strategy was meant to insulate a child from taunting meanies/older siblings picking on you. Not that it ever worked for me.)
I have this reverence for healthy fear of words. It's not unlike the respect a snake charmer has for the coiled critter. Maybe it's part of why I reserve my cussing for crisis-level situations. I hate to waste a crispy "FUCK!" when a soft-boiled "damn" will serve just fine. I can never figure out why my daughter (and a few friends) bust out laughing when I cuss. I think it's because I'm not very convincing, having had little practice.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
I'm writing this post in snatches of time. Every time my giant orange rescue cat dozes off, I snip off another chunk of his long, matted fur. He's been stressed by tummy troubles lately, and the matting is uncharacteristic but symptomatic.
I committed to this furry child five years ago. I cannot adopt every abandoned stray that shows up on my porch. But it's in my power to protect, love and make a difference in this one's life. The world has one less neglected cat.
When you're young and finding your place in life, the world seems gigantic and "out there." You doubt your power. You are unsure of its reach and its very existence—particularly when you're transitioning between your identity as a student and a so-called productive citizen. By the time you reach the middle of your life, the world, and your mark on it, will hopefully have become more defined. Your influence on the world is as much about the abstract concept of giving aid to victims of natural disasters half a world away as it is the squelched urge to flip off a driver who cuts you off. One less road rage incident. One act of sacrificial generosity, one act of self-control. They add up.
There are countless other ways one individual can conquer what plagues all of humankind, the animals we share the planet with, and the earth itself.
Raise awareness. Pray. Speak encouragement. Nurture yourself so you have the resources to take care of others. Fight your inner demons—daily, if you must, to be free to fight the demons external to you. And yes, WRITE.
I'm all for choosing a path based on how much it can help the world. But I've read far too many comments from people burned out from social work and similar helping professions. There is more wisdom in selecting a path that uses your gifts, as long as those gifts recharge rather than drain you. We are accountable not for everything that is wrong in the world, but for anything we can and are willing to do to brighten the world.
Raise awareness—of the sources of joy. Pray—in gratitude. Speak encouragement. Nurture yourself so you can by example teach others to nurture themselves instead of leeching out everyone else's joy. When you fight your inner demons, remember to leave time to dance with your inner pixies. And yes, for heaven's sake and the world's, WRITE.
