Thanks for giving me an ovation! I didn't even know there was such a thing. I just had to make one addition. This feels foolish and odd and maudlin; but I remember when I was pregnant and how wonderful it felt to be a part of some fairly predictable thing. Life often feels so unpredictable and disorderly and without pattern; but I knew that this physical pregnancy would, hopefully, be like ones so many other women experienced: I could read a book that would tell me how the baby would look and the stages, and I was part of some large community: the community of pregnant women. When I see hens doing their thing, I am reminded of this pattern in a microcosm: of the weeks it takes to grow from chick to chicken, of the time when a chicken drops her eggs. There are larger eggs and smaller eggs, and I found one egg without a shell that was soft and squishy and not fully formed. The hen sitting above the box laid that. But, every morning, the hens are there, unique and the same, and this satisfies me so much because things in the world aren't like that. One day I receive an award for a poem written and the next my doctor of 15 years walks out of the office and leaves over 500 patients stranded. But the sun rises and sets, and the moments with the chickens draw themselves out like taffy. I am sitting on a chair watching them. I am going nowhere for these moments, and this nowhere feels so right.
I'm sorry that I've gone on. Really I just wanted to thank people and to say that YEAH Frick, our very independent and different hen, got into my expensive box, and she laid an egg in it. I had put another egg there from the box all the hens were using; and, after days of placing different new eggs there, she took the bait. Sure, she faced the wall and pooped on the roost. It was darker and safer that way. Sure, she moved from the old safe box to the plastic box, back and forth and back and forth, but she made up her mind. Perhaps she felt it was enough of just sticking her head in that old box while two hens were inside and one on top. Perhaps she embraced her own independence, for she had been the one of seven always to hear the beat of another drummer. Perhaps she cold no longer stand in line at the old box. The new grey box has been christened. And the sun will rise, and the sun will set.
