“Bird by Bird” and Leaf by Leaf

Two, only peripherally related topics come to mind.  The first is my own response to the book, Bird by Bird:  Some Instructions of Writing and Life (given to me for my 69th birthday); and the second are some observations of the parallels and differences between autumn and early old age.

Bird by Bird, written by Anne Lamott, begins with the story of how she came to be a writer, and then it launches into specific suggestions related to writing.  Although I have not yet finished the book, I am sufficiently taken with it to want to share its delights.  First of all it is humorous.  Amusing elements range from clever to silly to sarcastic, and are scattered hither and yon throughout the text, making for a very entertaining read.  The author’s self-deprecations are particularly endearing; one immediately likes her.

Her forte apparently is fiction, but I find her advisory gems to be quite relevant for my own, more fact-related writings.  She shares what my husband refers to as my ‘need to write’; she can’t help herself.  And like her, I am able to completely engross myself in whatever I’m writing, which can be liberating, satisfying, pleasurable, even joyful.   Early in the book, she explains the meaning of the title, Bird by Bird:  In grade school, her younger brother found himself having not begun a complicated report on birds (assigned some months before) that was due the next day.  He was beside himself with anxiety, unable to begin.  Their father, also a professional writer, advised his son to begin bird by bird—an approach that has much wider applicability. 

In my own writing, I can begin with a small element and expand from there (bird by bird); but more frequently I develop a broad framework which I populate with small elements, each of which can be addressed individually, in bite sized chunks.  Whichever direction one goes—from small to large or large to small—the advice holds:  one needs to take on small bits at a time, to avoid being overwhelmed.

In an early chapter, Lamott emphasizes the importance of doing multiple drafts, noting that first drafts (though key to beginning) are typically wretched and need to be revised.  Her own words are worth repeating:

“Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts.  You need to start somewhere.  Start by getting something—anything—down on paper.  A friend of mine says that the first draft is the down draft—you just get it down.  The second draft is the up draft—you fix it up.  You try to say what you have to say more accurately.  And the third draft is the dental draft, where you check every tooth, to see if it’s loose or cramped or decayed, or even, God help us, healthy” (pp. 25-6).

In my own field, I find that actually there are more than three drafts.  One performs these three functions, and then sends the piece out for review.  This inevitably brings up additional comments and corrections and yet another, more refined draft (the microscopic draft?).  Finally one has to read it yet again when it’s time to check the proofs (often finding a few more viruses at that stage)—by which time I find myself completely tired of the piece!

Another key point that Lamott emphasizes is the dangers of perfectionism.  She begins this chapter with “Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people.”  She continues with “Besides, perfectionism will ruin your writing, blocking inventiveness and playfulness and life force (these are words we are allowed to use in California).  Perfectionism means that you try desperately not to leave so much mess to clean up.  But clutter and mess show us that life is being lived” (p. 28).  I like this.

Her emphasis on being aware of the world around us, ready to describe it in our prose, led me to a deep awareness of the fall leaves around me.  I live in upstate New York, where autumn is a time of unimaginable beauty.  Returning from my yoga session, I drove along hilly, winding Ringwood Road, through trees of red, orange, yellow, and brown interspersed with evergreens.  I began to think about the analogy often made between the seasons of the year and the seasons of one’s life.  I reasoned that I am in the autumn of my life—still healthy and active enough to participate nearly fully; yet surely on a path toward wintertime and senescence.  I have no doubt that each season has its own beauty.  One can easily see springtime and the growing child; summer for the full blossoming of adulthood; and winter as a kind of ending, in preparation for the renewal of new birth (whether one’s own, if one believes in reincarnation, or that of others to follow).  But autumn…the time/place I felt myself to be…is a little more difficult to imagine in this analogic fashion.  The physical beauty of the leaves is certainly not replicated in human physical beauty (any that was there has long subsided).  Perhaps one can think of the potential beauty of one’s mind and its greater ability to synthesize and build on life’s experience.  Yet, contrariwise, one’s short term memory suggests loss as much as gain at this stage.  Perhaps we should be thinking of the habitat one provides for other beings and for the young, an intellectual and emotional ‘habitat’ that hopefully is marked by greater wisdom, patience and experience.  It would be reassuring to think that one’s aging mind were potentially as beautiful as the autumn leaves of upstate New York!  One might hope to go out in a comparable blaze of glory, a final culmination of every life well lived.  A nice thought.

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