Betsy Robinson

 

What a wonderful journal of thoughts and observations by Amy Tan, who also is a fabulous illustrator. The Backyard Bird Chronicles is beautifully written and published (thick paper, suitable for color plates) and $35, which is cheap for a book with this kind of art. (I read a library copy.)

 

Finally I get this birder thing. Amy Tan chronicles not only the "bird community" in her lush backyard, but her own mind chatter—and she is self-revealing in that way that I'm guessing most people will relate to: all of our judgments and worries, etc. The entries range from informative to funny to sad and even heart-breaking (it is a rough world in the wild, even in the well-tended world of backyard birdfeeders) to inventive (a wonderful "live commentary" of "The Windowsill Wars" for bird food). And I so admire her care for all living creatures—from the birds to the live mealworms she feeds them. She roots for life but has the ability or tolerance to watch death.

 

I live in NYC, right off Central Park, and for most of my decades here I had dogs (my last girl died a couple of years ago), so I was well acquainted with the human "bird community" in Central Park's woodland area, The Ramble. [If this sounds familiar, it is because the well-publicized horrific racist incident with one of the long-time birders, Christian Cooper, was in the north end of the area.] Historically, the birders are not fond of the dog people who chronically break the leash laws in the Ramble. And the dog people, who are there year round no matter the weather, are not that fond of the birders who tend to travel in massive aggressive herds, moving like a seasonal invasive species oblivious to anything or anyone on the ground who is not a bird. There are obnoxious birder guides who show off by blasting their bird calls through the serenity to impress the people who've paid to go on their tours. In short, there is obnoxious behavior on both sides of this birder/dog people history. But after reading Amy Tan's book, I finally get it: the birds are just like us—complicated, scrappy, territorial, with bullies and submissives, predators and prey. Maybe I'll even take my binoculars there myself now that I'm solo. (N.B. The solo birders are no problem—some became my friends over the years. Christian Cooper was not a herd-group birder, and the woman who falsely accused him was a newbie dog person—Ramble etiquette is, when caught off leash, to say "Sorry" and leash up—no big deal.)

 

At the beginning of the book, Amy Tan writes about how she was taught to "become the bird" by her drawing instructor, and she does—struggling to understand how they recognize individuals and why they do what they do and if they can change their habits . . . which brings me to:

 

Some thoughts on energetic and telepathic communication that Amy Tan never mentions:

 

In my years of watching birders in the Ramble so obsessed with peering through binoculars and camera lenses, I often had a fantasy. Or an idea for a cartoon: what if somehow what they saw were birds staring back at them through tiny binoculars?

 

The thought amused me and still does, and, often while reading this book, I found myself envisioning this.

 

Amy Tan is mostly focused on common human senses of sight and sound in her musing about why birds react the way they do—even wondering why they are fine when she's looking at them naked-eyed through her glass doors, but the instant she picks up her binoculars, they take off. She posits that it is because she looks scary.

 

This brings me to a New York City anecdote:

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I recently had a deep conversation with a friend I've known since the first grade. He is one of the nicest humans I've ever known. To me, he radiates goodness. But he would dispute that because he isn't made with the same energetic antennae that make me ME. He'd just read my novel Cats on a Pole and he was deeply shaken by not only the turns of plot but by the protagonist's sensibilities: she smells things he doesn't smell and feels energetic sensations he doesn't think exist, so in his mind, she was possibly mentally ill.

 

Because he's such a good friend, I willingly went into the weeds of this with him. I explained about hyperosmia (a smell sensitivity; I just recently learned the name for it from a NY Times article that describes it as a gift—which it is—rather than the "disorder" categorized by medical sites) and I told him I feel energetic sensations everywhere. I told him how this is commonplace and in fact valued in indigenous cultures where people who are particularly gifted are named as shamans or medicine people. (Unlike in our Western culture, this is not something one declares about themselves.) I told him this stuff is ancient and there is tons of literature about it.

 

All he really wanted was assurance that neither I nor my protagonist is insane. He seemed satisfied at the end of our book-length series of emails.

 

And I learned from him that what I've written may scare some people and I hope I understand better why and how to respond in a helpful way.

 

Today, September 1st, is a day I glory in being hyperosmic. I smell fall: a heavenly mix of both growth and decay in Central Park, one block away. My apartment is filled with godly perfume, and I wish my friend could experience this.

 

I wish we all would be curious, rather than judgmental, about one another's differences. Altogether, we are the most incredible garden we could never imagine.