i feel like i need a david attenborough voice over.
I’m talking about my real chickens here. animal life in all its glory. gory.
I’ve been pretty aware of how deeply i am unready for a real relationship. how different a real thing is from infatuation or delight. kind of. maybe real things keep delight for longer than i know about, but I don’t know that from experience yet .
I’ve been doing a clean slate for the past month or so, cutting out the men that i flirt with, or have sexytalk with… and just keeping this one friend. . . for sex, ostensibly, although he is truly probably my friend, and i lurve him.
and its given me a lot of space to do the freaking out i need to be doing about money and employment and my own personal development… rah fucking rah.
but it has worked. i am thinking again, and that is pretty beautiful. and writing…. i really like writing here. so much.
but it has also highlighted for me how unready I am. how one little disappointment or situation that reminds me of my marriage can entirely derail me, and i literally break up in my head, and end friendships… this has happened numerous times and only people who love me can hang on for the ride. I am the runaway bride. less, the julia roberts look.
so. anyhow. this is where the chickens come in.
I drove into the driveway after hustling the kids i babysit for back and forth to MY kids soccer practice, and there was this big giant black bronco blocking me from my driveway. and two people in the yard. scruffy, maybe under an influence, not good teefs.
guess what? they gave me twelve baby chickens.
squatting. unfair landlord/tenant/homeless/givechickensa good home… all that in a nutshell, or eggshell as the case may be. free. with food, and lights and shavings and all.
yes. i am a good home. yes. i would love more babies. i just gave my youngest away to the kindergarten gods of time. yes, i would love more babies.
and guys? i seriously love them. like, all the love i am scared to give to a person? i am pouring onto these tiny, vulnerable, skwackative squackative ? little things. and man, they are really vulnerable. and i’ll probably lose one or two just to natural causes. and so risk. there is risk in loving something you might lose.
and i can’t understand their language, or what would most make them happy. so i’ve just got to wing it. (ugh. unintended puns. ) so i can’t spend all my time trying to please them, i’ve just got to enjoy them while i have them and take joy in the wildness of it.
and there are interlopers, reality pingbacks and old juju hens in my coop. these ladies are not a big fan of the babies. they might even be dangerous. and i’m trying to smoothe, yes, ruffled feathers. but then i have to leave them to their own devices in the night, and have faith that more will be well, than not.
and thats all i can do.
for now.
maybe this will be practice for me. maybe i’ll heal through animal magics…
guffaw. and pause.
