The Old Fox

The Chicken Chronicles
Chapter Fifteen
©2009 by Alice Walker

One of the books I would like to read to you next summer, assuming most of us survive that long, is The I Ching. Mommy loves it for its profound observation of non- human animals. It does a marvelous job of understanding humans, too, of course, but it is remarkable in its grasp of how much we learn from our cousins who study and comprehend us, but cannot, in human language, speak. For instance, there is the story of the old fox crossing an ice-covered pond on tiptoe, because she knows the ice may break. She/he is fine until he almost reaches the other side. Then the ice breaks! She almost falls in (which would mean drowning) but instead, because she has been careful, she only gets her tail wet! This is to say that Mommy, having traveled from the most southern part of India, Kerala (very hot) to the most Northern part, the foothills of the Himalayas (very cold) had avoided getting sick until the very last day of her visit.

And, My Children, air pollution, a major health hazard in the urban world of humans (the atmosphere to my lungs in New Delhi, and later, Cairo, looked like a thick dust made from your chicken mash) was a big factor, also.

But really, what is not amusing in this world, or at least thought provoking, once we stop coughing?

So on the very next to the last day, feeling fine, but tip-toeing across thin ice, high in the foothills of the Himalayas, almost on a lark, I accepted an invitation to consult a doctor of Tibetan medicine about some old health challenges I thought I’d already overcome. Though I didn’t plan to say what they were: he or she’s the doctor, I thought, let him/her tell me. The doctor came in, golden skinned, black haired and radiating health, placed me in a chair close to his side, and proceeded to hold my wrists for about five minutes, pumping up and down on them with his fingers in time with my heartbeat. He looked into my eyes but unlike a doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine, did not ask to see my tongue. He then proceeded to tell me everything I had been told by my Iranian acupuncturist less than a month before!

You will be happy to know that Mommy is basically healthy. That is because of our garden, which, with your rich poop, we shall continue into infinity. He informed me that climbing hills is something I should avoid, even though I’ve done it for so many years. Walk, but walk flat, he said. I should also not eat late at night because at night is the only time the liver gets to rest. Who knew? The most interesting thing he said though was that I must overcome a tendency to impatience. It turns out impatience is the thief of serenity! The moment he said this, I knew it was true, even though I like to think I am the soul of patience: like most humans, I am most patient and serene when I’m alone. But guess what? Dharamsala (the locals say Dharamshala) is one big hill. By the time I’d climbed the hill to the clinic (even though, truthfully, we climbed it in a van) I’d already climbed hundreds of steps and stairs and wandered up a couple of trails. And the air, very thin, and with a needle like cold embedded in it even in the sun, had hardly seemed sufficient to get me from one level to another. However, Mommy, having walked up so many hills, has a strategy: which is to walk up hills that are steep, on a slant, and sideways. The Tibetans who dash up and down their hills with the grace of mountain goats may have been amused at my way with hills. But another time when I return to visit them and they’ve aged a bit, I’ll explain it to them. This way of climbing hills saves the knees.

I meditated on what the Tibetan doctor said about my impatience and realized something to ponder: I am most impatient with people who don’t think the way I do. This isn’t the same as feeling impatient with people who have different opinions; I like this, for the challenge of it. No, I become impatient with people whose minds seem beamed from a completely different universe. In the world of astrology, one might say: Oh, Cancers and Capricorns. Maybe Librans. But it isn’t as simple as that. My mind, I realize more calmly now as I enter late middle age, is the classic monkey mind; it is non-linear in the most profound way. In short, without training, it is capable of being all over the place. Like a real monkey it seems to jump from imaginary branch to imaginary branch and then, as if by magic, it lands where the nuts are. Or the fruit.

But this is why Life gives us teachers. And you, My Girls, have been very helpful to Mommy in this regard. Remember when, after Glorious was eaten up by the chicken hawk, and Mommy was withdrawing from you out of fear and sorrow, and we humans thought bringing in more chickens would help us all feel better? Remember that? E. and L. and G. and Mommy had a long (by chicken terms) collaboration: How to do this? Would the “old” chickens get along with the “new” ones? E. thought we should introduce one new chicken at a time. But I thought no. One new chicken probably wouldn’t last long, from what I’d been reading in my Chicken Manual. I thought we should bring in the whole gang of new chickens and, in their numbers, they could duke it out with the gang of chickens already established in the chicken house. Ultimately, this is what we did. We introduced six new chickens at once, the Red Gang of Six.

Oh, the way you treated them! I was heart-sickened. I was appalled. I had only known you as gentle and cuddly, blissed out on Chardonnay grapes and kale leaves. You were vicious to your new mates. You pecked and scratched them; you wouldn’t let them near the food and water. You didn’t want Mommy to be Mommy to anyone other than you. When I tried to share goodies with the Red Gang of Six you wouldn’t allow it, unless I forced you out of the way. I was so embarrassed for you. Were these the “children” I thought I was raising? But, guess what? From your point of view, as chickens, you were doing what comes naturally to chickens to do: you were creating the pecking order that chickens live by.

My impatience with your behavior led to a withdrawal from you. I felt disappointed and deeply saddened. This made me stay away for days (at least two). When I went back to visit, you were still at it. Mean as could be. Abusive and ugly. Yes, ugly. Mommy found this brutalizing behavior so hideous she could hardly look at you. And when you jumped into her lap, wanting a cuddle, sometimes she stood up. It was this event, when she felt she simply could not bear you in your meanness, that was probably the most serious threat to Mommy’s health and heart.

That moment of pushing you away - while you looked at Mommy as if she’d lost her mind -was the flowering of impatience.