That Old College Try

Well, after a long talk with Linda, I've agreed to keep the chickens at least through Fall.  She has a plan that, if we're able to implement it, will make Winter care much easier, and provide electricity to power lights to increase the chances of Winter eggs.  Whether we can see that project through remains to be seen, but at least getting through Fall lets me feel like I gave it a legitimate try!

Chickening Out?

I'm trying to decide if wild enthusiasm followed by deep regrets is my modus operandi, or if I'm just not realistic enough. Do I allow myself to slowly tiptoe into that bracingly cold ocean, acclimatizing myself ever so gradually, or do I wade in quickly, ignoring the cold, sure I'll warm up....and then have a cold, hard smack of reality when that first wave hits?  I think it's somewhere in-between.  I want to go into that ocean, want to ride the waves, let the water take over.  I check the temperature, read the tide tables, then decide that regardless of all that, it's gonna be great and stride right in.  Sometimes it's everything I could wish, being carried to the shore as much by exhilaration as by the water, and sometimes I wind up wave-battered, squished into the sand like a used cigarette butt, dragging myself to the surface and up onto the shore, landing bedraggled and sad on my towel. Until the next time, anyway.

No, I'm not planning a beach vacation (although having taunted myself with the above, am now wishing Linda and I could steal away to some New England beach).  It's the chickens.  Yep, some 9 months after deciding we had to have chickens, 3 months of hard work and too much money, and 7 weeks of being a chicken owner, I'm having serious doubts.  Oh, I researched, read books, joined a 500+ member regional chicken listserv, subscribed to Backyard Poultry and Mother Earth News.  I picked the brains of our chicken-owning neighbors (who laughed at the books, the listserv and my obsessiveness).  I felt ready to enter the world of chickens.

Here's what I didn't know: first, chickens poop, all the time, everywhere; they're really pretty gross about it and don't care where they do it. It's their second favorite pastime after eating (okay, that made me laugh), and right above digging up hostas. People say chickens are smart.  Nope, don't think so.  Stubborn doesn't equal smart.  Chickens do exactly what they want to do.  We may call them 'domestic fowl', but they're worse than cats when it comes to going wherever and doing whatever the spirit moves them to do. Chickens get worms, and I don't mean the early-bird kind.  Even if their coop is kept very clean, and they're given premium food, and ample--and then some--free ranging freedom, they get worms.  If one is a certain type of person, all that equals frustration and stress.  When I first told one friend about the chickens, she said "you do like to complicate your life, don't you?" which kind of surprised me.  No way! I like life simple. I don't think I complicate it, and yet....I consistently take things on, envisioning that fabulous outcome, whether it's something I'm doing for myself or other people, and find myself with regrets.

It seems that at 50, one should stop trying things on and maybe focus on some real commitments, be it to learning to spin, raising chickens, learning to parasail or getting a graduate degree.  Pick something, give it your all...make it work (thanks, Tim Gunn).  Linda says you should never stop trying things on, figuring out what works and what doesn't, what you like and what you love and what makes you miserable (I'm paraphrasing). 

So I'm trying to decide if poultry farming was a huge mistake.  I have this homesteading-wool spinning-picking dinner from the garden-preserving food-chicken raising-and then writing about all of it-Earth mother image of myself. That image doesn't allow room for being prissy about cleaning chicken poop, or figuring out how the heck we're gonna get water and food up to them in the winter, or the stress that comes from constant worrying about these funny little beings that now depend on me for pretty much everything. 

I abandoned something else this year that I really thought I wanted to do, only to discover it no longer gave me any joy.  And maybe that's my answer...although the chickens have amusing moments, and tasty eggs, I'm not feeling the joy.  It feels like one more thing complicating a life I've been working hard to de-stress. Is it quitting to keep seeking out what may bring more joy and discarding what doesn't, the way a chicken tosses the kale out of the bowl to get to the cantaloupe guts at the bottom?  Is there any chance that feasting on the sweetness is wiser than choking down the bitter when there's choice to be had? And if so, does that make me a wisewomon, rather than a quitter? 

CELEBRATE!

Log Jam

It's been quite a week!  The chickens have come home to roost, and unlike my creativity, are already bearing fruit, er...eggs!  We started with the seven rescue hens who moved Monday night from the generous foster home provided by our neighbors into the coop that has consumed our lives since late March. Tuesday evening, Linda purchased two more hens, at least 3 weeks older than the seven, and we suspect one of those two is responsible for the TWO medium eggs we've gathered this week.  They'll be Sunday's breakfast.  These hens weren't free range, or raised organically until now, so we know we're not talking primo eggs, but it's a start.  I've posted more pictures here.  Unfortunately, I'm not feeling nearly so productive. 
Yesterday I got confirmation that an "essay" I wrote is going to be published.  I've been published in this magazine before, but probably not for at least 9 years.  It's exciting and I was profoundly honored to have the editor tell me how my piece affected her; it was high praise, and such validation for my lofty literary goals.  A dear faraway friend congratulated me, read the proofed piece, and offered her assessment that I "practice what I preach."  I should be brimming with excitement, motivation, determination.  Words should be flowing from me like water tumbles down Kaaterskill Falls.  Instead, every word it's taken me HOURS to write today has been dragged kicking and screaming through a crevice in the logjam blocking mind and soul.  The words and thoughts and feelings are 'there'; I can feel them jammed up, can feel my self bulging and swelling from their weighty pressure as they yearn to pour out.  But....nothing.  It's 2:00 on a Friday afternoon, the marvelous gift of a Friday off already more vanished than not, with virtually nothing to show for itself. 
Ah...except laundry.  Laundry has become my saving grace, the thing that seems my only measure of productivity...it has a beginning, middle, end.  I start with piles sorted in whatever way the mood strikes, and feel the deep satisfaction as each pile vanishes from the kitchen floor, rematerializing clean, soft and neatly hung, or folded and nestled, still warm from the dryer, into the cradle of a purple laundry basket. I seem able to control this small chore, able to see it through to completion, while words and thoughts never make it out of the rinse cycle.  How is it possible that faced with a writer's small success and validation, I'm even less able to loosen that logjam?  And appallingly, painfully mixing metaphors as well?!

Moving Forward

Do you ever feel like a derailed train?  Not just a train with one wheel dangling off its steel cradle, but one that has skidded right off the tracks into a quagmire of gooey, sticky, soul-sucking mud?  That's me...the little engine that couldn't (or wouldn't).  Take today for instance: in an effort to reclaim my far-too-long self-silenced writer, I promised myself that I would dedicate each Friday morning through the Summer (my workplace is closed Fridays from today through early August) to a "writing retreat", three hours dedicated to writing, be it poetry, writing exercises, giving shape to the novel begging to be written, or the blogs...anything short of grocery lists.  No internet, no calls, no distractions, no chores...just me, pen and paper (literally or figuratively). So how did that go?  It became a hair less than two hours, which I interrupted with research about and cooking of marrow bones for the dogs, and sending emails to Linda about that. 
And it's been a year this month since I declared that I would lose 75 lbs.  My progress?  At first, I was the soul of commitment!  Lost 38 lbs.  Then I gained 10 back, and sitting in the freezer for the first time in 374 days is Ben and Jerry's Karamel Sutra. 
My seedlings have dried up; the only things to have made it into the garden thus far are some beans, beets and basil. And I'm not even going to talk about my grand plan for getting way ahead on tasks at work, only to be doing a little bit of scrambling after all.
Do you see what I mean?  What does all this say about me?  Pop astrologers (versus the real deal) say Geminis are flighty; am I the embodiment of that?  Am I hopelessly lazy?  Is it self-sabotage, and if so, why?  Fear of success and the further expectations that success would birth?  What I do know is that every wheel that sinks deeper into the muck leads to some pretty intense self-judgment and depression, kind of a "what's the point?" mindset.  I have plenty of inspiration all around me.  Kim's blog is a testament to keeping at it, and not letting a slip become a downhill plunge from whence there's no return.  Time spent with Cait reminds me of how profoundly important it is to celebrate and honor the creative spirit.  Dawn's blog inevitably reawakens the desire to weave my life into a tapestry of sacred creativity.  With so much inspiration, and the non-judgmental support of a loving partner, all that's lacking is my own determination to to power up the engine and get back on track. 
So today I've lit my Brighid flame, not for my flamekeeping vigil, but to invoke the creative spark, to coax that flame into a roaring Fire of Goddess-directed passion and drive.  I'll rev myself up out of the mud, recommit to writing, weight-loss (which is all about having the health for the rest of it!), and the goal of living a more local, sustainable Earth-centered life.

Chugga-chugga-chug...

Nifty 50

Took an early morning walk with Lola (she's a BIG dog in a medium package; walking Lola and Yeti separately is far easier than trying to make it a threesome).  All the cliches come to mind after the endless rain--lush, Emerald Isle green. Near one house there were waist-high ostrich ferns.  The air was fresh and damp, the perfect olfactory backdrop for sweet and spicy floral scents to linger and tease.  Most of the flowers are still shy and subtle--fading lilacs, lavender and white  Dame's Rocket, pink tulips, honeysuckle in pale yellows, white and dusty pink.  But one garden made me laugh with the sheer audacity of its offerings....some poppy-like flowers, already past their prime (perhaps just worse for wear from all the rain) in brazen orange.  Alarm orange.  Carmen Miranda orange.  They had a flounce to them, flirty if wrinkled prom dresses the morning after the evening's festivities.  It was a lovely walk, and a sense-stirring start to the day.  Next time I'll bring the camera, I promise.
Ever since Monday's personal milestone of--gasp!--turning 50, I've been pondering and poking at what to call this phase of my life.  As a Goddess-loving pagan, three archetypes are ever-present in my consciousness--Maiden, Mother, Crone, of course.  For years now, I've wondered where I fall in this triptych.  The Maiden ship long since sailed.  My kids are grown and on their own; while the Mother doesn't require literal embodiment, and what with the menagerie and gardens, and creative juices flowing, one could make a Mother argument, but it doesn't feel that way anymore.  However, I'm not at Cronehood yet.  Don't know why, since I know plenty of womyn who celebrated Cronings at this age, but nope.
There's alot of work being done around a fourth archetype for exactly this stage in life, betwixt and between, not quite this, not ready for that.  Much of the popular work calls it the 'Queen'. That terminology, 'Queen', 'sovereignty', 'making a royal sceptor' and so forth makes my skin crawl with the dress-up pretension of it.  As one friend put it, makes you think of platform shoes and rhinestones.  Okay, my head hadn't gone there, but it either makes me see dusty, ineffectual, figurehead royalty or men in wigs and evening gowns.  Either way, no thanks.  DEFINITELY not there! 
But the concept of the fourth archetype, one that embraces the creativity and births still happening,  journeys still to be taken, wisdom--limited though it may be--born of age and experience, the strong sense of self, personal empowerment, the standing straight and tall in one's truth....this time of life--Autumn, the waning gibbous moon--perhaps does deserve its own representation, its own honoring.  But what do we call it??? Shaman--because its so clearly and distinctly a place between accepted worlds? Maybe, but that's not quite it. Priestess?  Sometimes perhaps, but each archetype can have its own priestesses. Magician or Empress as aforementioned friend suggested?  The former is too rabbit and white-tipped-wand evoking for me, and Empress, while carrying more oomph than Queen, is far too regal for the likes of this flip-flop wearing non-monarch.  Wisewomon?  I can maybe get behind that one, on a good day, anyway; the rest of the time, not so much; that word carries alot of pressure and expectation.  Certainly, we could forego the label and just 'be', but what do you call it?  Some of this, not quite that; a foot here, another there; burnished by the sea of time but no pushover victim of the waves; miles to go before you sleep? Do you feel a need for a fourth archetype?  Who, what and why?

Revelations

Rumor has it that the Rapture is nearly upon us, that on Saturday those meeting some nebulous criteria shall be snatched up in 'the twinkling of an eye' and vanish, reappearing in the Celestial plane (aka Heaven).  Does this happen a la 'Beam me up, Scotty'?, or is it more 'now you see me, now you don't'?  Regardless, I suspect I'm going to be among those left behind to deal with earthquakes, dead bodies, Glenn Beck, Arnold Schwarzenegger and more rain.  I can't help but wonder, arrogantly, what happens on Sunday morning when you wake up and are still here, when you've spent years believing this is the big one, this is when the Ultimate Reward for holy living pays off, and you....wake up on Sunday morning being nuzzled by the dog, needing to pee and looking for coffee.  Are you angry, hurt, confused, figuring someone messed up  the dates?  Do you wonder if you didn't measure up?  Do you figure you still have another shot at it, what with the alleged end-of-the-world scheduled in December of 2012?
And for that matter, what if you wake up Sunday morning and discover the notable absence of some folks, abandoned cars,some locusts, and people wandering down the road, shaking their heads and saying, "Damn....guess I SHOULD have gone to church"?  Will I feel abashed, lonely, a tad less smug in my interpretation of things spiritual?
Well, I figure I'll just be very careful driving on Saturday, and take comfort in knowing that either way, I'll be in good company!