A review by apar
Birds Art Life Death: The Art of Noticing the Small and Significant by Kyo Maclear

5.0

I worry that there might be a cost to living a defended life and moving through the world as an unstoppable self. The cost of joy.

Birds, Art, Life, Death is a slow, careful, beautiful meditation on…well, birds, art, life and death. The entire book reads like a long, slow breath, a quiet absorption in life.

Kyo Maclear has a quiet, steady voice, a *strong* voice, to air out her thoughts, fears and vulnerabilities. She does an excellent job of describing her relationship with birds and birding, with creating and fearing, with childhood and adulthood. She captures smallness—in birds, life, and moments, and gives it a sense of infinitude through connections.

“[w]orry is a constriction. A mind narrows when it has too much to bear. Art is not borne of unwanted constriction. Art wants formless and spacious quiet, anti-social daydreaming, time away from the consumptive volume ng of everyday life.

Like so many works of nature writing and memoir, the narrative occasionally dips and rises and dashes off in unexpected directions. And like the best of nature writing and memoir, she maintains control of her material, taking you in a direction; not necessarily toward answers, but toward a re-contextualising questions.

When I ran away as a teenager I was running from ideas about my character and my future and my purpose in life. I was running away from a story about dutiful daughters. I returned because I did not know where I would go or who I would be without these ideas.

Birds, Art, Life, Death is a wonderful piece of writing and storytelling that is going to stay with me for a while.

The birds tell me not to worry, that the worries that sometimes overwhelm me are little in the grand scheme of things. They tell me it’s alright to be belittled by the bigness of the world. There are some belittlements and diminishments that make you stronger, kinder.