Bird by Bird

I can't tell you how many authors I have read over the years, but one of my favorites -- and one whom I keep forgetting that I like -- is Anne Lamott. She's quirky, she's odd, she's rather controversial at times, but she's true and she's honest and I like that.

As much as I love to read, I am not, however, one of those individuals who can have multiple books going at one time. I'm a savor-one-book-at-a-time kind of girl. I like to dive into a book, immerse myself in a plot, chew and digest what the author is saying. If I combine Harry Potter with, for example, Jonathan Edwards, I have a potential problematic stew on my hands ("Sinners in the Hands of an Angry ... Voldemort?"). Every once in a while, however, I make an exception. Right now I am reading a "broccoli book," as my friend Jacie would call it, for our Book Club entitled Prayer: Does It Really Make a Difference? by Philip Yancey. It does indeed fit into the weighty green vegetable category and in all honesty I can only tackle about a chapter each night before my tired brain puts on the brakes. But I was compelled to make that exception to my single-book rule, and tucked in the drawer of my nightstand is a smaller paperback by Anne Lamott.

It's a book of hers that I picked up at the Writer's Conference in PA back in November -- a small number entitled Bird By Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. I don't often write in my books as I read them, for no real reason other than I don't usually have a pencil by my bed or otherwise just can't be bothered. But this time, I curl up in bed with my book in one hand and my pencil in the other, ready to scribble away.

I'm not very far into the book, having gotten through the oddly long introduction and the first few chapters (Prayer's broccoli does tend to get stuck in my teeth), but already I am marking up that book like a bad term paper (but in an oh-so-good way). It's her down-to-earth honesty that intrigues me, this knack that she has for setting up shop inside my head, settling down into a comfy chair and chewing the old fat. I appreciate her insights especially and on this particular topic -- the love of writing -- I'm not only finding it practical but human -- a part of me, a part of life -- as well. As the title suggests, Bird by Bird is not only about writing, but about life itself.

"Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write. [It] was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, "Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird."

I look at that in the context of my life -- my journey, things big and small that pop up along the way. But as I wrote my post the other day, about my difficult process of letting go (specifically of my kids' clothes, but oh how deep that can go), these words -- "bird by bird" -- rang true. How hard it was for me to move those bins full of my precious babies' clothes; how daunting it was for me to see that wall of neatly labeled plastic in front of me. How can I do this? How can I sift through five years of Aidan's life, represented by each little outfit, each tiny flannel shirt, each painfully adorable pair of jeans? How can I weed through two and a half years of the life of the most precious girl I have ever known, every cloud-soft sleeper, each tiny sweet dress?

"Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird."

One box at a time.
Aidan, 0-3 months.

The tiny green, yellow, and orange striped one-piece outfit, so baggy on his little frame -- the outfit in which he came home from the hospital.The little white cap he wore to protect his sweet red-fuzzed head.The adorable brown corduroy pants, the miniature blue denim shirt, the tiny brown and blue striped sweater vest -- the outfit in which he was baptized.The rest ... the rest ...

Bird by bird.
Bird by oh, so sweet little bird ...