Listening to Birdsong

The first lesson

The first week of June, my kids' first week of summer vacation, Norah, Conor, and I sat at our backyard table playing an afternoon game of Uno. Our table sits on the deck between our house and a bright green ivy wall. Outdoor lights loop overhead. The rest of the backyard is fenced in for our new dog, Benny.  If I closed my eyes, the sounds could almost convince me we were deep inside Central Park. Birds chirped, leaves rustled in a gentle breeze, children laughed nearby, and I could hear muffled traffic at a distance. We were not in New York, though. We were in our new home – Salt Lake City. 

For those of you reading this who don’t know me personally and have recently subscribed through a recommendation from Sonya, Ruth, or Neidy (thank you, friends!), you might be confused. This substack is still called Big Sky to Big Apple, yet we no longer live under that expansive blue in Montana or amongst the hustle and bustle on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. In many ways, Salt Lake feels like what would happen if Montana and NYC had a baby. The mountains are close, and the people are laid back, but there are still a lot of concerts, a few museums, and coffee shops we can walk to in our neighborhood. It has much more of Montana’s DNA, but there’s a sprinkling of city life, too. 

I started this newsletter because I think a lot about transition. And more than that, I think about how to care for ourselves during in-between seasons. To be still and take it all in. I didn’t mean to go silent in this space during this year, but in retrospect, it was a way to take care of myself. Instead of sending my words out, I kept them close. I wrote several essays about the move for my MFA program, but the only people who have seen those are my mentors and a few other students. I grieved leaving the city for as long as my heart needed to be sad. After a few months, I started focusing more on the joys of living near the mountains again – especially this winter when we could ski every weekend. But I still walked around most days with an aching heart. 

Eventually, I joined a running group and two book clubs. I made an effort to learn people’s names and said yes to coffee dates. And, of course, Brett and I continued to go to concerts as often as possible, which is our favorite date night and maybe also our favorite form of therapy after running. 

Last month, on a rare non-concert date, we saw Ira Glass, radio host and This American Life podcast creator, at the Eccles Theater downtown. He gave a talk called “Seven Things I’ve Learned.” When he walked on stage, he first said, “I need you to know I’ve learned more than seven things in my life. The title is just an excuse to tell you a few stories.” 

One story was about a man who bought a box of thousands of undeveloped photographs from a thrift store. He was amazed at the images as he developed them one by one. There were portraits of people out in New York City decades ago, and they were incredible. The composition, artistry, and aperture seemed to be the work of a skilled professional photographer, but the name was not given when he bought the film. He tracked down the photographer, learned she had recently passed away, and continued looking for people who knew her. When he met the woman the photographer nannied for a decade, he learned that the talented photographer was extremely private and would likely hate to have her photographs seen by so many people. Glass then equated this to Emily Dickinson and her poems. Would Dickinson have wanted her sister to publish so much of the work she had kept hidden in her drawers when she was alive? Many Dickinson scholars believe she did not want her work seen by so many people. Yet, where would the literary world be without her?

As it happened, Emily Dickinson’s poetry was assigned for my upcoming MFA residency. So the week after we attended Glass’s talk, I steeped myself in her work. Each morning, I poured myself a cup of coffee, walked to my backyard with the collection of her work, lit my gas fire pit, and read Dickinson’s poems as the sun rose. It was a pleasant way to get to know her. Toward the end of the week, though, I started to feel unsettled. 

I felt I was reading her private journal at her desk, hoping she wouldn’t look over my shoulder, furious and mortified that her work was meeting my eye and mind. And yet, her work gave me courage to be honest in my writing. I assume that most of Dickinson’s work was written for her and her alone. Her lines hold so much honesty, wrestling with God, and ache. That is also probably why so many people read her work and can relate to it. She wrote without worrying about how her work would be received because she never planned on offering it. Perhaps her posture toward the page is her greatest gift to the literary world. Her words are lovely, but the honesty and heart behind them are what makes them so. 

Writing advice is abundant, as is advice about anything if you’re looking for advice. Many people say having some distance from an event, a place, or a grieving season before writing about it is essential. Distance gives some perspective. I have been waiting for this distance to write about this unwanted move away from New York. I hadn’t realized I was ready until last month's Uno game in our backyard. 

Conor, now seven and still as delighted with life as ever, slammed his cards down on the table and yelled, “Oh my Godness!!” (a new phrase he’s been trying out that I really love), “Mom, did you HEAR that?”

I cocked my head to listen for whatever took his attention away from the game, but I didn’t hear anything new. The birds were still chirping, trees rustling, children squealing and laughing in a yard nearby. “I don’t know, buddy. What did you hear?”

“The birdsong! It just changed!! It was going “TWEET, TWEET, tweet.” His voice, along with his head and shoulders, lowered on the final tweet. “But now, it’s going, “tweet, tweet, TWEET!!!” His voice raised on that final tweet the second time, and he sat up straight. 

I hadn’t noticed the specific song of the birds singing in our yard. But I felt the change. I felt it inside myself, too. I’m not sure exactly when the song inside my heart got a little happier here, but it has. 

I’m going to borrow from Ira Glass as I tiptoe my way back into this more public writing space. Over the next few weeks I’m going to share a few (maybe seven) things I’ve learned this year. But really, it’s just an excuse to tell a few stories. The first one is courtesy of my very observant son. 

Number 1: Listen closely. The birdsong, and your own, will change with time.