Pig in the Onion Patch

Pig is the last of the twelve Chinese zodiacs, coming in a self-contented and decided last. Pig barely even bothered to run the race held by the Jade Emperor in the beginning of time, so losing was an unexpected bonus. Whoops- I’ve told the story backwards again. Yet again, I began the tale of the Jade Emperor’s race to determine who would protect the year with my zodiac’s appearance- insolent, long awaited and shuffled in long after the Emperor has grown sick of waiting. That was then; it’s also now. Pig swaggers back to a divine footrace with a full stomach and a days’ worth of stories. Pig’s arrival begins a cycle, a mood- a vibe, one might say- lasting aeons. Nowadays pig ambles in to the meeting an hour late, split hoof carrying an iced coffee. A pastry crinkles at the end of the other hoof. Pig makes no excuse for living well.

I wasn’t just born in the year of the pig. I’m also a Taurus, which is embodied as a bull but that often gets interchanged with boars. Sure, the chromosomes don’t begin to add up but these are laws written in the skies, not textbooks. Anyway, what are boars? Thank you. It’s a very Taurus answer to decide the bull is a pig, but for a double pig that gap in logic is easily overlooked.

Pigs are seen as filthy for their self-lavishing. In a society freshly aware it can capitalize upon self love, I say the pig is an entrepreneur. The pig tells barnyard neighbors, “come rest with me. Let’s piss away the day and make a memory. We’ll find lacework in the shadows’ slow migration across the day. What can one day’s work accomplish that a day of rest won’t?” The mud pigs wallows protects pigs’ sensitive skin. Pig, like humans, possesses huge areas of unprotected skin. Pig’s written off as lazy and unclean for prioritizing a slather of protection- even slather is a bad word.

Wallow isn’t a bad word either, even if it’s treated as one. To a pig, dirt isn’t dirty. It’s luscious as a bubble bath. If only it was appropriate for me to slop around in good quality mud while my friends earn tans, I’d probably enjoy my summers more. But I do wallow in a clay bath of emotions. Emotions are thick, take more time to saturate than water and weigh much, much more.

When I emerge from a pool I destroyed out of the land, that vulnerability as protection dries into unattractive crust. I don’t see the mess as unforgivable. I’m too fascinated by the cracks rippling through my new exoskeleton like lightening bolts. Many respond to suffering with a fight or flight response. I think the only way out is through. Well-meaning loved ones have been confused, then frustrated that I want to sit in my sadness and not drown it out with a day trip.

Sentimental vegetarian I am, I’d love to see pigs elevated to the same status as dogs. I want to meet chortling, snorting pigs out on walks. But even I still wonder- what does the pig do? How does pig serve and justify its room and board in the barnyard? I recognize in less convenient centuries, there’s a single reason to fatten an animal with the slop of precious leftovers. Backing away a free fall to grim logistics and returning to broad analogy, pigs are desiccated because they contain so much. I’ve been cornered by enough hilarious uncles at BBQs to know that if asked what a pig is made of, they’d say bacon. I say pigs are made of beauty. Fat on life's pleasures. They seep up experience and grow rich off their own feeling.

I suppose life as a pig is the life of a moving target. Any massive herbivore is ripe to predators- why do you think we have no more mammoths or ground sloths? I still think I’d like to grow that huge if I’m ever stripped of my humanity and reassigned an animal’s life. So yes, pissing away my day and writing stories that make me proud instead of returning to school for a useable degree or getting into real estate- I do feel kinship with the pig. I don’t know how else I could trust myself enough to be a woman putting herself first without the pig.

Maybe like the pig I serve no purpose other than to digest beauty. It’s a broiling, doomed and exciting place to be. The sensuality of the pig is negated, erased. Pain is as vibrant as love, unfortunately. I contain truths burned and gooey, all messy. Beauty is truth and truth takes many forms- just ask the pig.