I just discovered something about myself. Isn't that what life is all about--being pleasantly surprised, or horrified, to discover a buried piece of your psyche?
I like the smell of chicken shit. I mean, I'm sitting one foot away from a chicken coop and I'm taking yoga-style, lung-expanding deep breaths to enjoy the aroma--the shit. I wish there were an exotic name for it, but there isn't. Bats have the corner on guano. Cattle have cow pies. Hen dung just doesn't roll of the tongue.
Full disclosure here. I'll mention my surroundings other than the chicken coop. I'm a stone's throw away from a medieval Italian village staying at a friend's farmhouse/villa. It's possible the chicken shit aroma might be intermingled with Chianti grapes that are on the vine a few yards away. The chickens peck away at a few olives that have fallen into their enclosure from the branches that hang overhead.
Nevertheless, it seems the smell of chicken shit is the same no matter where one is. This morning, I realize the aroma is one of those smells that remind me of Kansas and my childhood. As I breathe in the scent, time rolls backwards to when I was 10 years old on an airless, hot summer day. I’m outside, in the yard and the buzzing flies are so lethargic, I can swat at them on the back of my leg and smash their guts into my skin. I'm wondering where the nasty black and white spotted rooster is. He lives to terrorize me. He waits until I've come from the hen house with my yellow, rubber-coated metal basket full of gathered eggs. Only then does he charge. The basket bangs against my leg as I scream and run. Eggs break, yellow yolks intermingle with the fly guts stuck to my skin.
The Italian rooster crows, shaking me back to the present.
Here's the long and short of this. I’m here, in Tuscany, gazing at rows of grape vines, olive and cypress trees. Nothing familiar, except the clucking of chickens and smell of their shit. My childhood follows me, no matter.
