Chickens:

The concept of chain reaction.

Give love and it comes back to you- isn’t that Idea found in almost all world religions and the teachings of all great men and women in history? Jesus. The Beatles (and Yoko…) Ghandi. Buddha. Mother Theresa. Martin Luther King Jr. Bob Marley.

I think that to really get into it, though, I see it as such: It’s specific. To be more concise, that which I give out is reciprocated to me in a mirror- I give out chickens, why should I expect to receive goats? Or even quails? I can’t, because something I have learned is this: Chickens always, without fail, beget chickens.

The application of this concept is such. I want to learn to experience a romantic love. I want to learn to be tangled up in that whole mess. It’s been lost on me- I have no idea what everyone’s always going on about, what 95% of song lyrics are really talking about, the common humanizing factor: love. And I furthermore have no response to them other than that I’m sorry...or the dreaded, “that’s so great.” I want…no. NEED to have another response. I need to relate. It’s time for me to get out of myself and get out there.

So chickens… I have gotten impeccably great at giving out chickens: I’m so friendly it hurts. My little chickens run all around and hold me in their hearts in a soft spot where all chickens keep their friends. Don’t get me wrong- chickens are incredible on so many levels; incredibly useful, tasty to the max. Everything tastes like chickens… and therefore everything is delicious. (side note: where did that expression come from?) basically, you can’t go wrong with chicken- bring a little chicken to the next party you go to as an experiment. I guarantee you that everyone will love it- everyone will want to know who brought the chicken, and will thank you for bringing it. (Maybe you’ll make some new friends, therefore bringing my little metaphor here to actual fruition… heh heh. Lemme know…)Let’s just say, I love chicken! I love sending out my little metaphorical chickens in all of the random and widely flung friends that I have. Love it beyond explanation that is possible here. My point is that my chicken pushing has never returned anything but chickens. I have never really and truly undergone anything beyond a friendship.

I mean, there are, of course, some really intense chicken-based friendships, I mean, REALLY intense where I feel like I know a person more than they know themselves (kinda scary, I know…) and those are fulfilling to the maximum degree that chickens can be.

But I think that I am ready for some really great quail. I’m ready for love, and I’m ready to be loved… not in the way that all my chickens love me, but in a passionate, dedicated, and undying way. I’m not writing this because I’m horny, nor, in that sense am I talking about lust… (and maybe the crux of this all is that in my darkest corner, I am an unrelenting romantic, with all the silliness that comes along with that, including the innate desire to get that quail…not my favorite part of who I am, but a part nevertheless. A big part. Disney, to blame, maybe…)I mean, real life heart warming, heart breaking, and utterly enlightening, life- changing, blood- pumping, life-affirming, self- doubting, self- assuring, self- denying, empowering and hanging, clinging, confidence building, confidence shattering, gut wrenching love. That’s what I want. That’s my quail.

And now for the application of the idea. I have no idea how to get to quail. My chicken resources are plentiful, and I have become an expert chicken breeder ( I mean, I could go pro… as … a chicken farmer…). I know where to get chickens and how to get them to multiply and replenish my life. Shoot, there’s fifteen places in a square mile radius from me at any given time in the day that supplies my chicken need.

My problem, and ultimate demise therefore, comes in the fact that the chain reaction which I am so well versed (chickens) never leads me to my quail. A cute little quail baby will never, on happenstance, pop out of one of my chickens’ eggs. It’s problematic, because I have no idea how to set off a quail chain. I know full well what a quail looks like- know it’s behaviour and where it hides- I just can’t make one mine. I think if I had one…just one to start with, I could make it reproduce and I would capitalize on its fertility.

But I don’t know how to breed quail. That’s my most embarrassing confession.