Dear diary, a lot has happened since we last spoke. It’s kinda wild how the world has the ability to show up just the way you need it to, right after you make room for it. Like when you make a conscious choice to stop carrying the anxiety of those around you. Or when you let go of responsibility for the happiness of people whose default setting trends negative. When you choose not to accept surface-level blame for the deeper rooted insecurities of others. When you decide, hey, maybe it’s not on you to turn every single frown upside down. Just, you know, let them frown. You don’t have to let it take away from your smile. But especially when you let your freak flag fly, like really, really high, high enough the freaks and geeks can see it from wherever they are in their own little freak shows, a bat signal comprehensible only to those looking for your particular freak parade. 

For the past six weeks I’ve been willfully trapped in a straight-up fairy tale and I’m genuinely hoping this is just where I live now. A few weeks ago I was literally gypsy dancing through a jellyfish forest at midnight with some merry men, a 12 string guitar serenading me from behind, a tambourine, or a shaker, or most likely a paintbrush perfectly pairing with an Anita White drum whispering simple truths, leading the way. And of course there’s the cult I either founded years ago or joined recently, time will tell.

More to come on all that, right now I need to process the very real fact I’m slowly becoming an actual peacock. Definitely taking on some birdlike qualities. Hard to say when this all started, quite possibly at the very beginning? I was born in 1981, The Year of the Rooster. They even sent me into the world with quite the beak, as some d-bags felt the urge to use as a weapon against me at a very vulnerable age. Can’t touch me now, I can fly! Cock-a-doodle-doo, my dudes.

Birds were never specifically my thing, though at one point I had an entire wall in my kitchen dedicated to them. The Bird Wall. I paid way too much money to get the cover of a free copy of the May 2022 | Volume 47, Issue 5 | Isthmus framed because it had a peaceful scene of some ducks having a good ‘ole duck time, and I thought to myself, I don’t want to stop looking at this. That’s how it started, innocently. Then it got flocking wild in there. Turns out, there are oodles of artsy birds living at thrift stores, flea markets and estate sales. Like any decent curator, I had to re-evaluate my design strategy as the collection grew, ultimately demanding the birds take a step back while I figured out where to take them. Not those ducks though.

Years before the bird wall, I became quite taken with dangling feathers from my ears. I spotted my first pair at the thrift store down the street, a series of delicate chains paired with these outrageous (at the time) spotted guinea fowl feathers**. I had to have them. I paid like five dollars for those + whatever else fit in the snack baggie, it doesn’t matter, what a steal! As with any physical upgrade, it took a mental moment to accept my new look, until they were just a part of my personality. I have no shortage of exquisite earrings, yet it’s rare I choose anything but feathers. I currently don a pair gifted to me by Alex and Lee, who saw them in a little shoppe in Tippecanoe, Ohio, and felt I just had to have them. Obviously they were not wrong. A wonderfully handsome variety of long rooster feathers that intermingle with my hair, sometimes I accidentally braid them in. Now we’re talking, I says to the mirror. 

When I went through my witchy phase (I’m still a witch, it’s just not my primary personality most days…maybe more of a late fall, dark days of winter kinda gig) I acquired some items of extreme birdlike interest, notably a skirt made of feathers and something that wraps around my shoulders and loudly screams, I AM A BIRD.

I often wear my hair with a little peacock poof. It started as a way to dry my hair. I don’t wash it very often and when I do, I tie it up immediately. At some point I noticed it was, uh, never getting quite dry, so I separated in three parts, braids on the sides, pile on top, inspired by my friend Heidi’s updo one day. The pile just naturally morphed into this rooster poof. You know, the I wasn’t guiding the hair, the hair was guiding me type shit. I didn’t hate it enough to take it down before walking one block to the grocery store, and once you go out in public like that, that’s just who you are now. 

At festivals I often drape myself in a sarong of peacock feathers. Not actual feathers, but holy shit, that’s a vibe. With a need to keep my hands busy, I’m always clutching a bandana, my own little dance wing flapping and snapping. I’ve got a neck with moves like a parrot. I’m a high-stepping crane, a waddling penguin, a fluttering hummingbird. Drifting like a swallow, balancing like a flamingo, pecking on snacks like a little chicken.

I’ve never thought to myself, I Want To Be A Bird, or even, I Like Birds. Birds are fine. I honestly didn’t realize I had become one until this last festival. Caught a glimpse of myself in a tiny mirror whilst purchasing an immaculately dyed parasol, glanced down at what I had going on and ya. I was an actual peacock. Turns out, I’m in my peacock era. Peacocking hard.

According to The Gentleman’s Journal (aww) in the article, “A Gentleman’s Guide to Peacocking“

Peacocking is the way to make the best possible first impression, and is guaranteed to help you cut through the competition, stand out from the crowd and attract the woman of your dreams. We know it sounds like a bizarre form of exotic bird poaching, but don’t mistake us: peacocking is thoroughly footed in both nature and fashion.

And you guys, it’s working. I’m meeting the dopest of the dope, the raddest of the rad. Just out here with strangers in between the trees and the streams, the bugs and toads and all the dirt roads, and sometimes my dog, looking like a goddamn peacock. Sending my bat signal out to all my freaks freakin’ at the freaker’s ball. I’ve never been a Normie, I just play one sometimes when the situation calls for it, which is fewer and farther between these days, and boy what a relief. To just be me. Around people who let me be all that is me. Encourage it, even.

My new friend Tobias (founder/member of the aforementioned cult) has good reason to believe arachnids are my spirit animal, and every time I scamper up the back of my truck and crawl into my rooftop tent and ziiiiiiip, zeeeep it shut behind me, they most definitely are. Both can be true.

Bird by day, spider by night. Peacock forever. 

CaCAW ❤

_{**Years ago I was way up in northern Wisconsin one July 4th and the singer at the bar we were at asked me where I got them. When I told her, she said she makes earrings just like that, and I was like, oh do you sell them and she was like, NO I just give them as gifts and we both wondered who she should cull from her life. Which is when I offered how I was terrified of something happening to them or losing them, so she gave me her card and both of our earring anxiety melted away.}