Birdsong
There’s nothing better than sleeping with the windows open, and last night was one of the first nights that’s been possible here.
This morning I woke at 5:30 to the sound of birdsong. This is without a doubt the best possible way to wake up in the world, even if it was half an hour earlier than I wanted to get up. I lay in bed and listened to the birds singing and I remembered a quote that I read somewhere or heard someone say.
The gist of it was that birds sing just because that’s what they do. They don’t worry if their song sounds right, or if its any good. They don’t worry about what the other birds think. And they for sure don’t give a rip what humans think of their bird songs.
They just sing.
Birds don’t worry about if they’ll get paid for singing or not, or if they look okay while they are singing. They don’t think about how the other birds might get jealous of how good there song is, or perhaps make fun of their song because its stupid.
Birds don’t worry about taking too much time to sing. Or giving up their household chores to sing.
They just sing. All the time, from the crack of dawn until dusk. I can hear one outside my window at this very moment.
You know where I’m going with this. So many times we shun our creativity for all of the above reasons, which are really silly when you look at them through the eyes of a bird. One of my favorite insights from the Artist’s Way is Julia Cameron’s bit about how the Creator created us, and thus we are most in his or her image when we are creating. That’s always made a long of sense to me, and I’m pretty sure it makes sense to the birds, too, except they don’t even have to think about it because they are too busy singing.
Steph
That is so true. Not only that I also enjoy waking up to the sound of the birds, but also the way you connected it to creativity.
It reminded me of a friend of mine who writes so wonderfully that I envy his way with words. Unfortunately, he refuses to start any writing endeavor because he insists that nothing would ever come of it. Shame when that happens.
Don
Birds singing in the morning, afternoon, or in the evening… it all sounds good to me. I especially love the sound of birds singing in my favorite place…. deep, deep in the woods, were the hum and clatter of the city is left far, far behind!
Now, if only I could sing as well as they?
horatio salt
I can hear the birds singing this morning as I write this. Thanks for making me aware of them and reminding me that being free and uninhibited is an excellent way to approach writing. I used to think of water as a similar stimulus. Sitting by a stream, I’d watch as the water flowed without stopping, sliding around rocks and other obstacles and reaching its destination by never slowing or varying its routine. I would sit under a tree with a pen [you remember pens? writers used to use them before we all migrated to keyboards ;-) ] and imagine the ink in the pen was like the water in the stream. It simply had to flow out of the pen onto my pages — and who was I to stop it?
Louise
What I love about hearing the dawn chorus is the recurring thought it it brings that every creature is at its most beautiful when it is doing what it was made to do. Songbirds are made to sing, eagles to hunt, writers to write, painters to paint, and, yes, managers to plan and manage and accountants to count. And it’s an equally tragic thing to see a person or any other creature not doing what it was made to do.
Susanne Van Hulst
Hi Charlotte,
I loved to read your post, it’s so great written, it made me smile from the begin to the end! :-)
I’m missing up here in Charleston all the melodies of the Mocking bird that I heard so often down in Key West. But we have here other beautiful and also loud singing “feathered buddies” – birds I never have seen before in my life.
Charlotte
Oh, you guys, thank you for all the wonderful comments! I think the gist of all of them is somewhat similar, which is essentially, who are we to stop the flow of words out of us onto the page? If only we can remember that we are here to create, no matter what form that creativity takes. Don’t know why we humans make it so difficult.