Boojey Birds

Recently I was sitting on the porch at a friend’s house as her chickens milled about. One of the happy flock flapped her wings and sent up this seriously ferocious dust cloud. And I thought “Holy flapjacks girl, what have you been into?” The imagery is still making me smile. She strutted out of the haze and happily went on pecking at the ground, as I sat there mesmerized, watching the dust plumes go up and then slowly settle.

How did she get so dirty? And omg, that attitude!

Having just survived another week of ‘2020’, the year that keeps on giving, I thought, this chicken has it all figured out.

Shake it off, and get on with it. It’s just a bit of dirt after all.

The fact is, life is messy, and lately seems to be dialed in to relentless full-assault. We get banged up, we fall down, we get scuffed and dirty. But when you are sitting there covered in ‘emotional mud’ (stress, anxiety, apathy, worry, angst, grief, sadness) it’s sometimes really hard to get back up again. I think unrealistic expectations play a large part in that.

We are often peddled this notion that when we get pushed down, we should gather our energies and launch from the ashes, like a sleek, shiny, Phoenix, soaring to new heights - showing the world what we’ve got. Truly nice imagery, but the Phoenix (or Superman or Wonder Woman) can be too intimidating when we are scraping bottom with our energy reserves, and barely have the energy to stand up, let alone take a shower. It’s not like we have these giant tanks of jet fuel at our immediate disposal. Leave that stuff for Elon and his Space-X crew. Frankly, it’s tough to get up when you don’t feel like it, when you are still banged up and dirty.

Daily winning isn’t launching into space. It’s about shaking your tail-feathers and letting go of some of the dust. That’s where the victory lies – having a good shake, and going about your day. Sometimes it’s really just about taking a shower. Eventually the little things add up to the big things, but the true courage is in that first move to dust off.

The fact is ‘getting dirty’ is necessary in order to grow. We aren’t meant to avoid stress or hardship. Building grit, resilience, patience, persistence, all of those great character traits, requires stuff to train on. Sometimes we choose to get dirty, sometimes the Universe flings us into a mud pit, but either way, it’s part of our growth, our adventure. Getting dirty is living.

I was recently watching an episode of “the 100”, a post-apocalyptic drama that has the cast fighting for their survival daily (seriously, those people never catch a break). Having just eeked out another battle against the universe, they were looking pretty darn grubby. I commented, “thankfully I’ve never been *that* dirty”. The really good looking one sitting next to me on the couch snickered and said “Have you ever seen yourself on any given Saturday?” It’s true, bicycle grease, flour, paint, or plain old dirt – these are my Saturday war paints. I choose these.

But the unexpected challenges that beat us up and kick us to the ground can yield fruits too. The more we can accept these as necessary for growth, I think the easier it might be for us to pick ourselves up, time after time, and keep striding forward.

The next time I’m tired and weighed down with the trials of life (probably in an hour or so), I’m going to forgo images of that high-falutin’ boojey bird, and just focus on flapping my wings like that badass little chicken and letting go of a little smidge of it. “Universe, eat my dust. I’ve got worms to dig up.”

Happy Pecking!