Chasing Chickens
When I was little, my sisters and I were close to our neighbors down the street. We were two sets of three girls. My sisters and I were twiggy, blonde, and sunscreened. The neighbors were all tan and had dark thick hair. Three and three. Two sets of opposite sides of the mirror. My sisters and I grew up watching SpongeBob and playing games on the computer, and as an adult there’s a part of me that envies our counterparts and their more basic upbringing. They had a TV, but no cable. They spent more time on arts and crafts than us. I grew up as an avid reader, but my sisters did not. All three of our neighbors read the kid’s version of National Geographic, the colorful pages always stuck to each other and filled with nutritious educational bites.
They lived in a short, chipper house. It was an off-white color that somehow always stayed clean. The shrubs and trees were well landscaped, and their mom carefully positioned cute garden ornaments amongst the perennials. In my memories, the gnomes and frogs blur into abstract shapes peeking out of green. In my memories, the grass is always wet with dew, and my shoes are never on. We played: hide and go seek tag was a weekly activity; forts were made, and there was the ever hilarious endeavor of tormenting the chickens. They kept chickens, these neighbors of mine, which seemed bizarre to me then.
We would chase these chickens relentlessly around the house–doing laps until we couldn’t breathe from exertion and the gut punch of laughter. There were no breaks in our game and no rules, and it was nearly impossible to win. Childhood is giggles. Mud. Wet knees. A brush burn that doesn’t hurt. And a chicken that is always, always out of reach. Childhood is rubber, elastic. Childhood is murky, elusive, frustrating, a tired topic. A tumbleweed. Why do we chase around and around what can never be caught? Why do the good times always seem one step ahead, two steps behind?
The chickens could be feisty at times. If you got close enough to try to grab one, you risked a finger getting nipped. It was just a little pinch, but an animal’s bite is something a child never forgets. Is it the fundamental nature of growing and learning–to be bit by something you only want to hold? Is it fundamental for us as humans to want to capture what isn’t ours?
I come back to the images because they are my favorite. The feelings of being a child, and the tastes and smells. Trying to breathe and laugh at the same time. Petrichor. Sidewalk chalk. My neighbors and I are no longer friends. The oldest one, the one who matched me in age, graduated high school a year early on account of her brilliance and left the chicken game behind. In actuality, we had both grown apart much earlier than that, but it’s romantic to think our relationship might’ve suffered from the forces of physical distance rather than a metaphoric one. The honest truth is we were not the same. The Rose of Jericho starts as a tangled brown ball, but eventually opens up its mouth to release a growth of earthy green. This green is only possible because the sprigs that were once comfortably nestled together are forced apart.
Is it the fundamental nature of growing and learning–to be bit by something you want to hold? I worry that I’ll only ever learn my lessons the hard way. When I was in college I climbed a mountain in Vermont with a group of friends. On the way up I had all these fears and pains in my head: my first relationship was crumbling, my family still didn’t know I was a lesbian, and furthermore what the hell was I doing here with all these people who knew who they were? They lived it. They walked the walk, and drank IPAs that tasted like shit, and were so much more sure of themselves than me. We stopped every once in a while and looked back, and each time the elevation change was staggering. I had never climbed this high before. The aching of my thighs felt like enlightenment. When we reached the top I was dirty and free. I was a whole lot more like the me that used to run around barefoot. There was all this forest, and it didn’t care about me or any of my problems. I wanted to fall into it. I wanted to sink into that green life that was happening, happening, happening.
As we climbed down the mountain, I was reminded of nature’s bite. Our clan was composed of four girls who had been segmented from the original group. The leaders–our fastest climbers, our charismatic kings and queens–had left us behind with our permission. The rest of the group had fallen back and given up on the endeavor, making us the middlemen. We’d reached the summit just as the sun was going down; amazing timing for photos, horrendous timing for ill-prepared climbers who lacked headlamps. The edge of fear snapped at our ankles as we descended; the sky grew darker with every passing second. Everyone talks about how hard it is to scale a mountain, but nobody discusses how hard it can be to climb back down.
Rain dumped on us, as we made our way back to the car. Before long we stumbled into a Mexican restaurant blistered and hungry, bested by nature. Our group was a sight: twelve worn out twenty-somethings covered in dirt and grime, laughing over apple-flavored tequila against the cheerful orange and blue booths. When the climb began, I felt as if I were staring down the barrel of The End. A semester and a half left of school, no plan, and no real idea of who I was. I’d stuffed all this worry into my already too-full backpack. By the time I was sipping a margarita with dry sweat caking the back of my neck, the backpack of anticipatory grief was nowhere to be found. There was only the here and now–a present that had no beginning or end, only gut punching laughter, salt, and lime.
My childhood died like the slow fizzle of a pop cap cracked just a bit at a time, to preserve the carbonation and prevent explosion. My young adulthood ended with sharp pain in the plantar fascia.
After all this time, I live again in my hunched brick house on a street named for running water. I have loved, lost, grown, and shrunk–I scaled mountains and found a new home, yet somehow I have returned to this one. This grass will always be the first my baby feet ever touched. I recently went to a wake for my elderly neighbor, the one who lived to the right of me. He was a welder, teacher, and veteran. My sisters and I had known him all our lives. After the wake, my dog Nala was whining at the door, staring at me with her desperate eyes, so I took her out for a walk. We usually go down the road to the right, but the gravel of my deceased neighbor’s driveway was daunting. Instead I led her to the left. It was a day of warm air after a long string of dark and cold. As I walked, I wondered if this weather was what it felt like to die after a decade of pain.
Was it a warm breeze carrying birdsong and a hint of mist? Was death the first spring afternoon of a new year?
I passed by that house, the one that belonged to the neighbors who raised chickens and didn’t eat processed meat, and it surprised me that it looked less touched by time than mine.
While my yard had lost the big tree in a storm, and the grass had become permanently patchy, their yard still looked even and lush. Their screen door swung open a little as I passed. It banged against the doorframe as the wind sent it back and forth. It was the same, but I didn’t recognize it. I looked down at my sweater and slacks. They were two different shades of black.
Why do the good times always seem one step ahead, two steps behind? When you grow up, coming to terms with reality is a daily struggle. Children understand the present moment intimately. Each year I unfold more and more, my brown curled twigs coming alive when submerged in water. Yet something in me yearns for that true steady darkness of the womb that we all know but can’t name, a backtracking that can’t be achieved. It’s hard to come to terms with the fact that life isn’t running away from me. It’s there, in my reach, but I can’t get a good hand on it.
I kick a pebble. Nala tugs at her leash. There are so many scents, and she already knows this one well enough. Dogs don’t dwell on anything too long. They’re masters of instinct. It feels like rain might be coming soon, so we’ll only go to the end of the road. Maybe by then I’ll figure out what it means to pass by a house that you used to be able to map in your mind without hesitation, but now stands against the trees like a stranger.
Jess Marinaro was managing editor of Gandy Dancer 12.1 and 12.2, alongside the talented Lili Gourley and Sara Wilkins. Her work has appeared in Gandy Dancer as well as Iris magazine. Her experiences while a part of Gandy have and will serve her for the rest of her life. She thanks Rachel Hall for being a valuable mentor. She is deeply grateful to any person who has ever read her work. You all have shaped her more than you know.