The Chicken In The Backyard

Hi Friends! Now for something completely different…

Yesterday I woke up and there was a chicken in our Brooklyn backyard. Our cats like to take a quick (or not so quick) walk out back each morning before their breakfast, sniffing and surveying the terrain of the patio and plants. Until recently, they would journey into other backyards, jumping up on fences, exploring other human territories, but now that they are getting older we supervise them and keep them in our garden only. Nishi tries to make a break for it all the time - three weeks ago she got stuck in our neighbor’s backyard and we had to get a 6 foot ladder from the basement, drop it over the 8 foot tall fence and coax her to climb it. She took each step with delicacy, alighted from the top of the fence, hopped off of our landlord’s gas grill and proceeded to trot in, eat her breakfast and snooze on her favorite chair as if nothing occurred.

Anyway, back to yesterday - as usual, I bundled up in a blanket, my pajamas still on, slid into my slippers, opened up the heavy door to our frigid garden and Nishi and Marv took off running into our landlord’s larger backyard area. And then…as soon as I rounded the corner, I saw her. A beautiful grey chicken frozen with fear as it saw two cats running towards her.

Not our beautiful guest, but striklingly similar

Nishi The Brave wanted to eat this plump hen and tried to pounce on it. The chicken flapped its ineffective wings and unsteadlily rested on the aforementioned gas grill. Marvin The Sweets didn’t know what to make of her - was she predator or prey?

I opened the door to our apartment and yelled to Jeremy, ‘there’s a chicken in the backyard!’ He was meditating in the bedroom which is at the front of our apartment. I rarely bug him during his morning ritual, but I knew he had to see this. (And also, that he had to be the one to somehow pick the chicken up, and get it over the 8 feet of solid fence to our next-door neighbor’s patio).

Jeremy came out in an exhilarated hurry (anything that breaks up the days lately which is not horrible bad news elicits exhilaration). He and I laughed as we took in this feathered creature making its little chortles and squawks. I escorted the cats inside. Jeremy and I tried to corner the hen so he could grab it. Needless to say, the hen did not like to be cornered. But she did like the planters which lined our yard; she managed to find two hearty earth worms and gobbled them up.

After about 10 minutes of chaotic chase and attempted grabs, the stress growing steadily for all three of us, Jeremy managed to clutch and gently toss her over the fence on top of our neighbor’s gas grill (who knew gas grills would be such prominent players in a January tale), where we could see through the slats of the fence that she hopped down and was greeted by her a) mother or b) sister or c) best friend hen. They proceeded to gobble and bobble as a duo, until we couldn’t track them anymore, reunited and it feels so good…

Sometimes we are like the chicken stuck in somebody else’s territory, flailing with wings that just do not serve us. Sometimes we have the luxury of being the cat; powerful, confident…yet sometimes even the proverbial cat gets stuck and can’t jump the fence. And sometimes we are the mensch-y humans who cater to both predator and prey, stuck between the needs, arguments, and beliefs of others, trying to not only hold our ground, but attempting to figure out where we fit in the first place. I often feel like the latter lately - surrounded by so much noise, so many opinions that it is tough to hear my own.

I was feeling pretty down and disoriented this past week after the autonomic sense of new possibilities for 2021 wore off, the seasonal affective disorder officially kicked in, and by the heartbreaking events at our Nation’s Capital. Our little grey visitor snapped me out of it for a while, and kind of allowed me to reset. The experience helped me to realize that I am craving physical tasks, experiences with a clear beginning, middle, and end. And that it is ok to seek those out, to move towards what brings delight and comfort. And I guess I am taking this time to share about the hen in the hope that we all have some humorous distractions and interesting revelations in a very trying time.

Nishi The Huntress

Interesting Things That Crossed My Path This Week:

If you haven’t started PRETEND IT’S A CITY yet, you must. You will laugh out loud many times.

This is such an amazing piece from 1952 in The New Yorker archives. THE CAVE by Joseph Mitchell, about the mystery of Sloppy Louie’s, a restaurant across from the now defunct Fulton Fish Market.

And check out HISTORICALLY BADASS BROADS, a hilarious and super informative podcast by two pals about impressive women throughout the ages.

Love to You All, Stacey