A Cautionary (Chicken) Tale

Once upon a time, a fairly typical suburban mom, with slightly left of center leanings, decided to get some chickens.  She had heard that it was relatively easy to have a simple backyard flock of free ranging birds that could roam in peace and tranquility.  And, better yet, she would be able to feed her family truly organic eggs.  A conscientious sort, she took the health articles to heart-- although it often delayed her at the grocery store when she stood in the aisle perplexed about which scientific article she was following at the time.  They were often so contradictory.  But no matter, her own chickens and her own eggs would surely be a straightforward  extension of her passion for peace, humanity, love and health.  Free bird, like the song from the early seventies came to mind.

Things went surprising well at first.  The chicks were adorable and as they grew up they would run down and greet her when she pulled in the driveway.  Really!  And, she will never forget how on one day, when the coop door happened to swing shut, the chickens actually pecked on her kitchen door to let her know.   This really surprised her, actually, and got her thinking about some deeper issues.  Nobody really ever mentioned that the chickens would actually be able to think and plan.  So, while it was a remarkable story to share with her friends, she naturally started pondering the greater implications of chicken welfare, which, she would add, had not previously been on her mind.

And then the day came when a hawk got one of them (it was meant to happen, she learned, with free range birds).   What struck her about this particular experience was how the other chickens stayed hidden under the bushes even though it was nightfall so she had to carry them back to the coop.  Who would guess that a chicken could stay frightened for that long?  After this, she often found herself staring up at the sky, while becoming quite adept at learning the difference between a crow and a hawk.   One day, when she was out on a walk, in fact, she noticed a hawk flying east toward her house and called her kids to let them know to check on the chickens.   They found this to be annoying.

Of course, there had to be some kind of solution to the hawk problem.  After a great deal of research, she found out that she would need a covered run area in the winter.  When she explained to the fence builders that the run had to be rather large as these were supposed to be “free range” chickens, they had to explain to her the physics of fence supports and the cost involved.   So, she compromised and had them build a chicken “exit” door that opened up into the covered woods.  On most days, they would still be free, she reassured herself, just not in the dead of winter.  At this point her kids started calculating the cost of the eggs that they were eating.

By now, the mom was gradually becoming very tuned in to the workings of nature and not at all immune to the realities.   In fact, while she was practicing the art of meditation with some friends at summer camp, the call came in that a fox had gotten her flock.  Trying to be a good example to those around her, she breathed through the next few minutes while she tried to figure out what it was she was supposed to do.   Ultimately, the woman who was watching her dogs agreed to bury the chickens the fox had left behind.  She was truly amazed that a professional dog sitter would agree to this impromptu job, and quite stunned when the dog sitter found a chicken that was still barely alive.  Now, this was a situation that she definitely had not considered when she purchased the chicks.  What do you do with a half dead chicken?  She decided to call her vet.   Cell service was bad at family camp so she had to stand between cabins while explaining the story.  The secretary referred her on to a vet farther away that handled birds.    The friendly dog sitter agreed to take the chicken there and check her in.  When she inquired about the chicken later in the day, the vet happily reported she was weak but alive and on oxygen. When people heard this at camp they warned her about vet fees, another situation to consider.  Luckily, she was able to reach her mom and ask her to go pick up the chicken and put her in the bathtub until she got home.    

It was not, surprising, therefore, that when she accidently acquired a rooster, she was completely torn up about what to do. Though she was told that roosters could be downright dangerous, she didn’t have the heart to let it go, a certain death sentence.  So she decided to use the opportunity as a test of courage and give the rooster a chance.  Well, it turned out that the rooster was not scary at all, and in fact, was weakened by some chicken disease.  Now, suddenly, she found herself trying to nurse a rooster back to health.  This involved many things, among them, antibiotics, warm meals, and a space heater.   She also learned about parasites, the correct color for chicken droppings, and the need for particular vitamins and minerals that can only be mail ordered.

To further complicate matters, the rooster stayed immunocompromised.  This meant that she was cooking for him on a daily basis, all while rationalizing her behavior.  And of course, the rooster displayed distinct qualities she found both endearing and heartbreaking.  For instance, though he often did not have the strength to stand, as soon as something came near the coop, he would get up the best he could on very shaky legs---his big effort to be tall and intimidating to whoever was coming.  She knew better, of course, how very hard this was for him.  And it made her love him all the more.  She also took note that the rooster seemed to have a sense of pride –as whenever she would feed him, he would only eat when she looked away.

The suburban mom now reflects on how ambitious it actually was to buy those chicks in the first place.   Had she known that they would bring so much drama and confusion to her life, she might have thought more carefully about her decision. But no matter, she is in too deep to reverse course.  She definitely has some healthy eggs on her counter, but they look very different to her now .

The Problem with Love

My first experience with letting go was during my teenage years.  It was my early acquaintance with romantic love, (or in reality, the typical teenage crush), the kind that makes you giddy; the kind without a lot of talking.  Instead the kind that uses a Pink Floyd song like "Wish You Were Here" as a substitute for actual conversation; the kind that is thrilling in its newness and freshness but without any lasting depth.  It coincided with my 16th year.  Though I was old enough to recognize the startling shift in my emotions,  I was too young to give them appropriate weight in the larger context of life.  So what felt like an eternity was in actuality only three months, but no matter, it was forever.

So when the day came when he broke up with me I was unprepared.  I poured over advice columns in 'Teen Magazine, cried on my best friend's bed and wrote tragic poetry.  I staked him out in the high school hallways, while carefully avoiding passing his locker, drove past his house at odd times and watched with a broken heart his new relationship unfold -the one with the older, more worldly girl (if you know what I mean).  I tried to recover.  The only solace I could find was contemplating a saying an older friend passed on to me as she was struggling in her own, more mature love life:  "If you love something, set it free.  If it returns back to you it was meant to be, if not, it never was."  I found some peace.  It was my first memorable practice with impermanence, the conflicts of love and things out of my control.

So now, here I am a few decades later, and without any warning the year of 16 and that sage saying has reentered my mind. It is in that tricky arena of love, all over again, an emotion that masquerades itself as pain, pleasure, fear and longing in equal measures.  I am again being pushed in an uncomfortable direction, but now it is not a crush, nor a romantic love at all.   Instead, it is parental love, love that has grown and magnified over time.  Love, in fact, that is too big to fit into my heart.  Quite oddly, however, the lesson remains the same as the one I learned as a teen.

Though it was not easy to send my oldest off to college, I knew he was ready.  And though I was prepared to let him go on the day I dropped him off, it turns out that that was not the end of the hurdle.  Instead, the challenges keep coming.  In fact, I recently found out he is not coming home for spring break.  He is doing that thing that millions of other kids do his age.  He is driving south, staying up late, and visiting the beach.  It sounds like a grand old time if you aren't the worried parent.  In this moment that I should be celebrating with him his independence, self reliance and quest for adventure, I am instead cautioning him.  "Are you sure you want to go?"   "Route 95 is so dangerous."   I cross a line with my fear.  I am ruining his excitement.   Rationally,  I know this but my emotions, again,  are like magnets, crowding out intellectual debate. But this time I should know better.  As it has many times before, the realization that things are really out of my control slowly sinks in.  To think that it was ever different, that we are capable of managing this gigantic life force, is just an illusion.

But this is what love does.  It pulls and pushes us in places we don't want to go and, yet, we willingly love again and again in a million different ways.  We add people, pets, causes and projects to our lives at great risk to our own fragile natures.  We nurture them.  We care for them.  We invest in them.  They became a piece of us that we are driven to protect at all costs.  Inextricably they become the meaning, the pleasure and the pain. Of course, therefore, there is no alternative.  In order to live, we must love and let go, love and let go, love and let go.

So once again, 20 odd years later, as I resort to the fatalist saying, If you love something you must set it free...

I realize I still need practice.

Find the Divine. *not for the conventionally religious

I am in another yoga class.  I am breathing.  I am BREATHING IN.  And Out.   After 20 years on and off, in and out, the breathing hasn’t gotten routinely easier, and neither have the stretches that contort me in occasionally painful ways.   But, sometimes, something will resonate.   This is one of those times, but it didn’t happen sequentially.   Rather randomly, in fact, as many events in my life that are unexpected.

There is a phrase that yoga teachers seem to use.  I don’t know the origin or the exact wording, but basically it means that we all have a divine spark, the divine is within all of us.  For the longest time this was not meaningful to me---it was a lovely thing to hear, of course, but I had my doubts.   I may as well insert a note here about my religious history.  There was the Methodist preschool, and youth group when I was under ten.  We had a close family friend who was an Episcopalian priest who we went to for advice.   And then when my dad started to really feel that  “life is indeed short”  (probably in his 40’s, because that is what I am feeling) we were brought over to the Mormons who promised we could live eternally if we just signed up.   During my college years I found myself at the Unitarian Fellowship and, in fact, one of the best sermons I ever heard was on “Gardening” and I have never forgotten it. My marriage by a Rabbi to my Jewish husband inspired me to learn about the Old Testament and, in fact, my homemade challah rivals those who have inherited the tradition from the beginning of time.

And now?  I am comfortably adrift.  I love reading the texts from many religions, especially the Dalai Lama, of late, as he seems to really get the breathing,  (and the part about living in the moment.)  I could really use his advice about that because living in the moment is so hard when you are very worried about the future.

So there I am recently at a Bat Mitzvah, with my usual wandering mind about worry; I am noticing the adrenalized thirteen year olds, the dressed up adults (especially that woman who really rocked her leather dress and gray hair, hope I look that good in a few years…); Just the typical northeast scene on a Saturday morning at the ceremony celebrating the Jewish coming of age.   I practice being in the moment and up walks the Cantor and then she sings.  And it is like nothing I have ever heard.  The beauty is indescribable.  It reaches the absolute core of my being.  And suddenly, out of nowhere, I suddenly understand those yoga teachers.   I am witnessing some kind of divine spark.  In one instance, in this Jewish house, I ironically start to understand the eastern division of religion.  

And then, something happens a couple days later.  And this time, I am not in a place of worship where it is arguably easier to notice the divine.  Instead I am out at my chicken coop with some kind of new crazy problem.  There is blood on the walls and I cannot figure out how it got there.  I am in no position to get another chicken to the vet because my car has to go in for service.   The truer part of the story is that there is no way I can start examining my chickens because I have actually read those horror stories of what can go wrong when a hen delivers an extra large egg and it is nothing I want to see.   So I rack my brain and try to figure out what it is I am going to do as a suburban mom- thrown into accidental farming- when I realize there is one person I know that can help.  There is one person who can rescue me from passing out and falling apart.   And miraculously, he has not left for work yet.  More miraculously, he agrees to come over and investigate my chicken bottoms.   I leave to get to my car appointment and when I get home, he is in my backyard applying Neosporin to the insides of one of my chickens.  But what I actually see---not the upside down chicken at all—what I really see is a very big divine spark.

And finally, as if I needed more evidence that these yoga teachers might be on to something, I recently attended a class on a day that I had been feeling particularly anxious about a number of things.   As we are lying there she quotes a Haitian saying ---“beyond mountains are mountains.”   Is she talking to me?   And then she says,“when something is heavy, you have to let it go.”    She MUST be talking to me.   It is that divine spark, again.    I am suddenly finding it everywhere I go.