On tiny deaths

A dead chicken, a dead career, and how we become ourselves

Matt called me from our front gate, “Babe, something is wrong,” he said breathless.

“Oh my god, are you having a heart attack?” I bleated.

“What? No. Chuck is in his chew spot and it looks like the chick cage is damaged.”

“Oh shit, let me put on a shirt.” I pop the baby off my boob and get dressed. We run out the front door.

Chuck, our Great Pyrenees, uses his “chew spot” exactly as it sounds: to chew on things that he is not supposed to be chewing. The spot is at the very front of our property, a couple acres away from the front door. He has plenty of time to see us coming.

In his chew spot, we have found:
a pair of pink furry slippers I got from a clothing swap that said “Cool Mom,”
the occasional missing Amazon package tooth-pierced and rained on,
a tool bag,
one of June’s shoes completely demolished into a handful of colorful scraps,
and an assortment of tattered food wrappers skillfully stolen from the trash can in the garage.

By the time I got out the front door, Matt had assessed the damage.

“Five chicks are missing, including the rooster.”

Our baby rooster is a plucky little black and white cutie and I love him, as much as one can love a rooster anyway. He is an Australorp (i.e. he’s half Australian) so we named him Steve.

I gasp, “Not Steve!”

Rage flares up in my belly. I turn towards Chuck’s chew spot and bellow across the property.

“DAMMIT, CHUCK, YOU ASSHOLE!”

At that exact moment, I see Chuck in the distance hopping and skipping, tossing a feathered football in the air and catching it again. His 90 pounds is remarkably airborne. His jowls puffed flapping in the wind from his acceleration upward. All paws in the air, Chuck’s black mouth gapes open, unfurling a perfectly pink fruit roll up tongue lined with glinting white teeth. He squints toward the dusk in euphoria as he snatches his beloved nugget out of the sky.

Complete and utter bliss, galavanting through the grass.

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You know what has suffered the most since I quit my job? My ego.

Who am I if I don’t earn my own money? A dependent?

No, no, I work more than I ever have. I’m a contributor without a title, compensated beyond a paycheck. Is this…emotional labor?

Emotional labor is real labor, the feminists hiss, but who should pay?

I was once a screeching grad school feminist, living on student loans and idealism, ignoring the laws of the market; I still have my nose ring to prove it. That version of me—and all she was so sure of—is gone now; a more grounded and content woman grew in her place.

It turns out, I actually can rely on a man, if I choose a good one (I did). I can even enjoy this time without guilt, if I surrender to the terrible vulnerability of relying on him.

---

My mind rattles through all the changes I’ve been white-knuckling through the past few years. My career is slipping through my fingers. My old friendships have faded. My grandmother is gone. I can’t remember the last time I had time alone. My clothes don’t fit.

June grabs a rock from the yard and I am yanked back into the now.

“Not in your mouth, baby,” I remind her. She thinks about it, drops the rock and shakes her head “no.” I smile to myself. She returns her focus to the ground.

Under our feet, there’s a world that only came into focus as I followed my toddler around: itty bitty bugs and their funny dances, quivering grasses, intricate pebbles, vacated snail shells, decomposing twigs, and tiny tumbleweeds of fluffy white dog hair; an entire ecosystem of decomposition that I don’t want her to eat.

Sometimes I think of all I could be doing if I weren’t staring at the ground with June. Why, I could be making an income, connections, notoriety online. I could be organizing someone’s data into a sensical story. I could start a company, build in public, shitpost, create a viral NFT. I could argue on LinkedIn about some niche design topic. I could roast in the false pressure cooker of constant digital production. I could conquer the entire internet!!!

Or, I could just let my world be small. So very small.

And let my heart be happy, barefoot in the grass.

---

After searching in the dark, we find Steve the rooster and four of the girls huddled on some compost under the lean-to. Chuck got away with only one chicken that night, and my rage finally subsided when I realized that even if that chicken had survived, I would have eventually eaten her myself.

Chuck is just being a dog. And we are responsible for managing him, as he is, where he is. His innate nature is one of many logistical challenges that we must account for on the homestead.

I left the city, only to find I have many more problems to solve.

I quit the best job I ever had, only to face the more demanding challenges of mothering and homemaking.

I lost my delightful grandmother, only to witness my mother morph into a fierce matriarch.

I raged over Chuck’s murderous urge, only to remember I’m also a hungry carnivore.

And so we become, through many tiny deaths.