“Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report written on birds that he’d had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books about birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, “Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.” -Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird
“Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them . . . Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” -Matthew 6:26a,34
I first encountered Anne Lamott’s beautiful part-memoir, part-writing-manual, Bird by Bird, in 2007 when I was a still-newish middle school English teacher studying over the summer with other English teachers during a glorious NEH-funded summer in Chicago. I was young then, with energy in spades and no children to care for, and while much of the book stuck with me, I had no patience for doing things bird by bird. I was gulping life at breakneck speed. I was at a full gallop. I loved the feel of wind in my hair and six different balls in the air. Slow, methodological attention to one thing at a time was not my hallmark. It still isn’t.
Besides, the brother she speaks of in the story shouldn’t have procrastinated to begin with! I mean, come on, bruh. You had an entire school year to begin that project.
Still, I recently encountered an interview with (the now 70 year old) Anne Lamott, and I heard her “bird by bird” story with very different ears. Whether it’s staring at the March/April blog folder and feeling inundated-paralyzed with ideas or looking daily at my list of priorities and stressing over where to begin, the more middle aged Julie Rust is finding herself much more sympathetic to Lamott’s brother “immobilized to the hugeness of the task.” Lately I am finding, not just comfort or wisdom, but survival in bird by bird, day by day. If I think too large about the entire enterprise of it all, I too easily slide into frenzy or depression or an odd swirl of both. If instead I redirect my attention to small bites I can take today in the right direction, I find a whole lot more comfort. (For example, I am in a tad bit of denial about Lucy Rust going to college in the near future, both financially and emotionally. But this morning Lucy and I looked at the slideshow from our fabulous college counselors together, started a google folder entitled “Lucy College,” and began drafting a list of next steps.)
Another strange shift in middle aged Julie is that my previous disdain for self help books is dissipating. I don’t mind mentioning that I’ve been listening to excerpts from James Clear’s Atomic Habits and have had more than a few aha moments result. The basic premise is that there are rarely single breakthrough moments or inherent genius markers that lead to success. Success comes from tiny changes, slight daily improvements, that accumulate and reap dividends over time. A clean house is the delayed result of 1000 better choices. (I clearly haven’t made those choices.) An impressive set of academic publications is the delayed result of getting up at 5am day after day for years to fit in extra writing time. James Clear advocates that we give up the popular practice of setting concrete, measurable goals. Instead, we should start changing systems in our lives that will inevitably lead to hitting these goals. In other words, stop watching the score on the jumbo-tron. If we continually improve our stamina at each practice session, the game score will take care of itself.
I think that Lamott, Clear, and Jesus are all pretty much saying the same thing in a different tune. I think we are all too-focused too-often on the outcomes. I think, perhaps more than any other life-season, middle age forces us to reckon with the fact that just setting a goal doesn’t mean we will achieve that goal. The proof is in the pudding. My pudding isn’t what I thought it would be at the age of 42. I think this makes us more humble, but also a whole lot wiser.
I think I will try to slow down and take things bird by bird, blog by blog, class by class, conversation by conversation, for a while, and see how that goes.