I need to change my author bio.
It’s not the bio you’ll find here on my website; rather, if you stumble across my writing via another writer (like Spider Babies, my Mother’s Day Guest Post for Robyn R. Smith. Subscribe to her inspiring Encourageminutes! Let me know you’ve signed up and I’ll send you a free copy of the piece) or if you download one of my standalone pieces, you’ll read a little blurb about me that includes this very clever line (of which I am immensely proud, for several reasons):
She enjoys… whistling at the local birds (of whom, thus far, only the Chickadee has replied).
The black-capped chickadee has been a faithful-feathered friend to me since before I knew its name. For someone who cherishes a call-and-response theology and simply loves music, there is something sacred about one of God’s creatures answering a melody. I’ve lauded the chickadee for this reason, naming and delighting in it with my writing (as evidenced by my author bio and my most-read poem, It Isn’t the Robin).
But I mayhaps need to change my bio because this week I made a new-feathered friend: I heard his tune, I echoed, and the white-throated sparrow answered me.
It was a beautiful life moment. It was almost like he was testing me with different variations of his tune to see whether I was singing with him, or whether it was a wondrous coincidence. It reminded me of a choir audition, where the director stands you alone before the piano and plunks out three to five notes of various intervals and waits for you to sing them back to her perfectly.
I must have done alright, because we’ve had regular melodic encounters since that morning.
All the while, still loving my chickadee songversations.
It reminds me of the song we used to sing at camp:
Make new friends but keep the old; one is silver and the other’s gold.
Though in this case, one is black-capped and the other is white-throated.
So, how about this:
She enjoys… whistling at the local birds (of whom, thus far, replies the black-capped chickadee and white-throated sparrow).
From my heart to yours,
