Chicken Scratch

Art from a chicken's point of view

I painted this chicken, and then it asked me to write about it… it pecked at my ankles until I did.

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Someone spilled a rainbow and a chicken appeared… I think it’s me.

I look like I swallowed weather, a forecast no one expected. The porch swing is swaying. The wind chimes are playing. The trees are all a dither.

Maybe I’m a rumor of a chicken told by a madwoman with a paintbrush. Maybe I’m the madwoman, feathers tucked behind my ear, dancing a crazy dance in cathartic joy.

When I swirl, my tail rustles with the sound of ideas that can’t be pigeonholed… or chicken-holed. They are free-range ideas. Some of them are boneless, slipping through expectations, ensuring I’m impossible to coop up.

The background can’t decide what it is: sky, field, daydream. Let’s go with daydream. It’s more manageable than the sky, and has fewer weeds than a field, although I do admit I have weeds… some prickly, some dainty.

But a daydream travels to places that distract from ongoing daily news related ______ (left blank due to speechlessness about what’s happening to our country).

I’ve never fit neatly into any box labeled “normal,” Thankfully….I keep company with others who wander off the map and bring back souvenirs like a map with all the wrong turns highlighted in gold, with the note: “Take this route for future story ideas.”

My mother used to look at my art and say, “Interesting use of color,” which I now understand meant, “How is it that you’re my daughter?” We were opposites and the friction from our differences caused small fires I now extinguish with cathartic art, dance, and conversations with cats …Sometimes tears. Sometimes baguettes with a generous dollop of butter. Most times, writing. My mother was beguiling.

I just noticed “cathartic” has the word “art” in it. That makes sense.

Yes, everything is okay. Even when it’s not okay, because we’re alive, which is a wildly improbable situation to begin with. I never want to take that for granted. I can’t always handle life, but it’s the only place to get a good cup of coffee.

The eggs I lay hatch ideas that follow me around and peck at my ankles until I pay attention. They grow into odd, luminous things, half-story, half-song, a little inconvenient, but alive. I don’t always understand them, but I’d never send them back. They’re good company. One of them is this.

If you came here to see a normal chicken, I’m happy to disappoint you.

I’m still a chicken, just not the kind that was ever meant to sit quietly on a napkin, be considered perfect, or win a ribbon for being well behaved.

I cross roads only to get to the other side.

I got away with being myself.

And if you listen closely, past the cluck of shoulds and supposed-tos, you will hear your own feathers rustling. Rustle unapologetically.

You are welcome to be yourself here too. As I get to know some of you, I know that’s not hard.

Uncooped,
Jill

See many of you in the paid subscriber Zoom workshop on Wednesday, July 15, 11 pacific… a celebration of birthdays and unbirthdays, art and unart… perfection is prohibited. Make sure you register to get your Zoom link. See link below paywall.