Letters from the Cluckshack

Dear whoever finds this,

The Cluckshack has five residents and one HOA president, and her name is Betty.

Betty is a Buff Orpington with the bearing of a woman who has been disappointed by management before and does not intend to be disappointed again. She supervises. She does not lay so much as issue eggs, the way a banker issues a loan — with terms. Lucy keeps the books. I don't know how, exactly. I just know that when something is missing in the run, Lucy knows where it went, and she will look at me until I figure it out.

Heather, Ethel, and Georgia live on the high perch. They are the Greek chorus. They comment on everything and commit to nothing. If I come out to the coop crying, they go quiet, all three of them at once, in a way that always makes me think the chickens know more than the chickens are telling.

I started keeping chickens because I needed something that needed me at the same time every day. Grief does strange things to a schedule. You lose track of meals. You lose track of mornings. You lose track of whether you've spoken out loud yet today. But chickens — chickens do not care about your inner life. Chickens want feed at first light and water that isn't frozen and the small dignity of being let out into the yard. You can hold yourself together for that. On the days I couldn't hold myself together for anything else, I could hold myself together for that.

The Cluckshack taught me that healing is not a project. It's a chore list. It's the same fifteen minutes, every morning, in the same pair of boots, with the same five opinionated women clucking at you about the temperature of the water. Healing is showing up for the small ridiculous things until the small ridiculous things become a life.

Betty would tell you the same. Betty would tell you with her whole chest.

Yours from the coop,
Briana (and the girls)