A review by joaniemaloney
Birds Art Life by Kyo Maclear

4.0

'I would have kept the bird in my room and fed it moistened seeds and mealworms. It would not have been heroic. I could have made a fuss. I could have risked being a cliché of earnestness, risked trying and failing.

Deep down I think I knew the remorse would not be large and crushing. It would be small and manageable, just a tiny bird, embarrassingly little. Not a crisis. And that's why I regret it. Because the attitude that somehow, without our acting, the little things will take care of themselves does not ring true anymore.' (p. 202)

A delicate, thoughtful memoir that brims with joy and sorrow, soaring like birdsong. Kyo Maclear's tentative foray into the world of birds with a musician friend is touching in its earnestness and honesty as she learns about this other side of the city, allowing herself to see the vibrancy and hear the songs that she missed out on before. There's a beauty she describes in her surroundings - even in a city where it seems even the buildings that replaced natural landscape have been razed for newer buildings - that I found so lovely and calming to read about. (I do live in the same city and beyond the pigeons and sparrows and seagulls, I hardly notice the birds at all, so this did help to open my eyes.)

In terms of the personal, I could relate so much to her being a fretful person: always prioritizing the 'what ifs?' and expecting the worst, cutting the future down to size and never to plan too far knowing that disruptions were inevitable. Birding as a way of coping with that, and all of her concerns being acknowledged in words, were like a balm. The relationships she had with her family, with her ailing father in particular (this was the main driver for her grief), were very lovingly sketched.

I didn't expect to pick up a book that mixed memoir and birding, but the design throughout just drew me in (love all the illustrations and photos!), with the promise of a sort of meditation. I can see myself revisiting this one someday. I feel that my temperament is so close to the author that there was no way I would've not been comforted by this, somehow.