If there is
one sound in all of the world that fills me with joy, it is the sound of birds
calling and singing to each other. Every morning when I go out to greet the
day, it is as if all the neighborhood birds sing me a “Good Morning!” I love to
just sit in silence, watching and listening as the birds go about their
business. It is a strangely exciting experience to imagine yourself being among
them, seeing and experiencing the world through their eyes. I am not one of
those expert birdwatchers who can name each type of bird I see. I’m lucky if I
can pick out the more obvious ones, like cardinals, blue jays, crows, eagles,
hawks, finches and starlings. I am in awe of people who can tell you what kind
of bird is singing or calling at any given moment just by the sound they make.
I can only do that with cardinals, because I once had a pair that visited my
bird feeder every day, and, of course, crows because, well, everybody knows
what a crow sounds like!
As a writer,
I have spent countless years trying to find what is known in the literary world
as “my voice.” I have tried on one voice after another, often copying the style
of writers I admired when I was younger. The fact that nothing I wrote during
those years felt authentic or truly mine was a strong indicator that if I
wanted to be the very best writer I could be, I had to find my own voice and
write from there.
We humans
struggle throughout most of our lives trying to find our own voice, the one
that gives us good advice, that supports us as we pursue our dreams, and
comforts us when life throws us a curve ball. It’s the one that doesn’t call us
names, or tells us we’re failures, or reminds us of all of our shortcomings.
It’s the one who is always there when no one else is, and connects us in the
physical world with the truths that we stand firm on in our spiritual world. It
is the voice of authenticity.
The other
day as I was outside tending to some of the last of the autumn gardening
chores, I heard that distinctive sound that could only belong to a crow. He had
stopped by on his way to or from the corn fields where my neighbors are
harvesting and perched in a tree close by to where I was working. He squawked a
hello and proceeded to tell me a story while I worked. It did not matter that I
don’t speak fluent crow. What mattered was that the voice I heard was
distinctly his, and I thanked him in a voice that was distinctly mine.
And so it
is.