I work in a female dominated profession. I once told a new, male, administrator that what we needed most in our building was a rooster in the henhouse. I did not realize at the time that the man was gay, and I am sure I could have phrased it far more professionally at the time, but I was trying to express how badly we needed someone to put a stop to the nightmarish things women do to each other. All the ways we pick each other apart; all the ways we act cooperative when we are extremely competitive. All the ways we try to justify backstabbing.

My chickens never let me forget this truth. The chooks are cute and funny and silly but also cruel and mean and hurtful. We discovered this weekend that one of my favorite girls was not just molting but was having some “help” removing feathers. Two scabby wings and a complete lack of feathers in spots made my blood boil. While I can read about and understand the realities of a pecking order, it breaks my heart to see it applied in full, literal sense with my beloved flock.

Lately, I feel like I’ve been the one doing the pecking and backstabbing. Not to a friend or colleague, but to myself. I feel like I have been sabotaging myself, convincing myself that I am less than I am, or not capable of what I dream, or that I cannot have the things I deeply crave. I feel like I have been telling myself lies for perhaps longer than I can even put a finger on and that those lies have kept me from being true or being real or being honest with myself.

Tonight, I tried to clean the wounds on my favorite feathered girl and at the advice of a neighbor who knows about such matters, I applied honey and wrapped gauze around her, all the while trying not to think it looked like I was preparing her for Sunday dinner. I’m too soft-hearted to deal with the hard side of pets and I found myself sitting on the ground, in the improvised quarantined-but-still-visible area of the run, holding my little Ruby on my lap trying to keep her calm. I heard myself telling her in my quietest “mom” voice, “Breathe, sweet Ruby, just breathe.” And after about the fifth or sixth or twentieth time of me saying that, I realized I wasn’t saying it to Ruby, I was saying it to myself. Breathe, Amy. Just breathe. Just sit on the ground with a chicken in your arms. Feel the sun. Hear her soft coo’s and just exhale for one damn second.

I wish there was a salve we could apply to the wounds we suffer, including those we self-inflict. I wish there was a way to wrap ourselves up tight, add some protein to our diet and after a few days find ourselves healed and ready to face the flock again. I wish there was someone to come in when we need it most, especially when we are least likely to ask for it, and just hold us while we remember to breathe. I don’t just mean the friends or family who will call or text to see how we are doing. I mean, the arms that hold you tightly but just loosely enough; the embrace that says, I’m here, for as long as you need, but you are free to go, too. In all truth, in every molecule of my being, I wish I could talk to my mom. Breathe, Amy. Just breathe.

I will keep checking on my injured chicken. Even in the middle of the night, I will go make sure she is okay, out in her isolated area, all alone. I will give her any comfort I can for as long as she needs to heal. I will sit on the ground and hold my dear little Ruby and tell her that she will be okay; that she can return to the flock good as new in a just few days and that I will not let anyone peck her wounds while she tries to heal. And I will do everything I can to offer the same reassurances to my own self.

Today, I am blessed by my injured feathered girl, who give me reason to pause and reason to breathe. Who put me into my own little isolation and stopped all the doubts, worry, accusations, and peck-peck-pecking in my head for long enough that I heard the migrating cranes, that I felt the heartbeat of an animal, that I smelled the damp spring earth. Thank you, Ruby. Your wings held me today just when I needed it most.