Just Us Chickens

I've been thinking a lot lately about what to write next, coming up with themes and letting them go, and just not really being struck by anything in particular. The irony of beginning a blog with the theme of getting lost and then promptly NOT getting lost very much at all has not been lost on me. It has made me think about it though, this piece of me that has been very much a part of my identity for so long that I had forgotten to question it, to see if, really, it still fit me. Oh, I still have no sense of direction; take me in a building, run me around a little and let me back out, I'll have no idea where I am. We have so many natural landmarks here that I'm pretty full of myself, throwing around north and south with the best of them. But I've still gotten lost to the point of tears when someone's given me directions to "just take that exit past the chevron station..." and it just hasn't been that simple.

What I have noticed though is that I've just been here for so long that I know this place, in a way I've never known any other place in my life. I never realized that when you're 18 years old 5 years spent in a single place seems quite long; when you're over 40 and just now noticing that you've lived that same 18 years rooted in one city, you start to think that maybe it was only reasonable to get lost so often when you never stayed put.

And I think when it comes to feeling rooted and learning my way around, I'm a slow learner. My brain was wired for other kinds of knowing, but feeling a sense of belonging, a sense of place comes slow to me. With that comes an almost endless searching for community, an obsessive need to "find" it and make it mine somehow, always questioning what it actually consists of. But today I was doing the dishes and looking out at the chickens and got a little glimmer of something.

Yes, we have chickens in the city. We used to have three, but Nancy died, leaving Bess and George behind. We got them when they were tiny chicks, picked out for their beauty and their egg laying abilities and they grew up with each other and with us. It's been interesting to us to watch their little community develop and realize that they have a whole complicated social structure all their own. They have different voices and different calls they use for different purposes. One call is a warning call for a predator, specifically a cat. When they're out in the yard and we hear that call, we know to go running to the defense of the flock.

Yesterday we had them back in the coop and were out working on the side of the house when we had a little visitor. Specifically, a little orange striped visitor, a local cat who is adorable and sweet and friendly....and whom we've had to chase out of the backyard when he's gone after the chickens. But the chickens were safe and the gate was closed so we were playing with and petting the cat. The chickens were going nuts, calling and flaring their neck feathers, spreading their wings, making themselves bigger. We couldn't figure it out; we'd call to them, we went out to the yard to try and calm them, but they were having none of it. We finally figured it out when we saw one chicken seeming to watch the cat's movement and realized she could see him through a hole in the gate. (The visual cortex of a bird, you have to remember, is much more powerful than our own.) Even then though, they were safe in the coop and they know that; we've seen that they understand the difference between being out and vulnerable, as opposed to inside and safe. A little more thinking and detective work on our part and we got it–we are part of their flock! They were warning us and trying to protect us. We're kind of stupid sometimes but eventually we figure it out.

It's a cute story, and we were touched by their concern, but is there really any deeper meaning there? Honestly, I don't really know. But I do know that I like the fact that I live here in this place with the companions who occupy the space around me, and I know that when push comes to shove I've got my flock behind me. They've got my back and sometimes that's enough.

copyright 2008 J. Autumn Needles