This week’s Rejecting Rejection is a unique piece that brings a new light to the art of writing. Elizabeth White-Olsen shares her two passions with us, in this enlightening piece about Birds and Words. Whether you believe it or not, the two have a lot in common. Read Olsen’s piece to find out how.
Birds and Words
by Elizabeth White-Olsen
It’s a hot, bright day in the Rio Chama Canyon desert, seventy-five miles north of Santa Fe, and my skin soaks up every bit of cool that rises from the small crests of the river. I scan the right side of the bank with my binoculars, studying every rock, willow, and waving tuft of grass for a gray back or a swift flush of feathers.
No luck. Same with the left side. The air is so quiet, it’s like no bird has ever flown above these sandy cliffs.
My future-husband and I have been scanning mountain and desert streams in pursuit of the American Dipper for three days now, but we haven’t even caught a glimpse of the bird in retreat. The American Dipper is a small charcoal-gray bird that walks or swims along stream bottoms to feed on insects and tadpoles. It’s shaped like the American Robin and, like the Robin, it has an adorable childlike quality. Its habitat is steadily being destroyed by our building of homes, golf courses, monoculture farms, and strip malls, as are the habitat of most native bird species, so year-by-year the Dipper gets harder to find. Glenn, though, saw it under this very bridge three years ago. He really wants to see it, as do I.
After fifteen minutes of hoping and waiting, Glenn lowers his binoculars and shakes his head. “Hmm. Maybe we’ll catch him on our way back down,” he says, but, as fate would have it, we would not.
You may be thinking, I thought I was reading a blog about writing. Why is this person talking about birdwatching? Though I do speak of birds here, at the same time I speak of words, for birding and wording are quite similar. For instance,
- Both are inspired by the love of beauty: the love of finding the beautiful bird equals the love of finding the beautiful word.
- The catalyst for both activities has little or nothing to do with earning money, for one earns nothing watching birds and usually very little by writing.
- Most laymen consider birdwatching and writing to be peculiar or even pointless activities.
With these inherent similarities firmly in place, please read on, keeping in mind that when I speak of looking for birds, I am also speaking of looking for words.
***
Nothing has taught me more about rejection than looking for birds. First, because, as with the American Dipper, I sometimes never see the bird I seek, and 
second, because, other than Rock Doves (a.k.a., “pigeons”), Great-tailed Grackles, House Sparrows, European Starlings, and American Robins, species that most birdwatchers perhaps unfairly ignore due to their ubiquity, 95% of all birds will reject an approaching human being by speeding away into the leafy cover of a bush or treetop. While I can completely understand these birds’ reactions, knowing that they are based on, oh, the tiny detail that our ancestors have been shooting, trapping, tying up, stuffing, and eating birds for millennia, when I search for a bird with no intention but to simply witness the beauty God gave it, my inspiring every bird to flee can leave me with a persistent feeling of rejection.
Through the search, though, love keeps me going, and I have learned we must trust love. I have also learned a few other things. For instance, that
1) There always seem to be birds and words we can’t find. Though Glenn and I saw hundreds of gorgeous birds that made our trip to New Mexico well worth it, we still left New Mexico feeling sad that we didn’t get to see the American Dipper. Yet, sadness was never strong enough to vanquish love and make us put our binoculars on the shelf.
2) Birds and words can show up when you’re least expecting them. Halfway through our trip to New Mexico, we were also chagrined that we hadn’t yet gotten to see a Bullock’s Oriole. At the end of a weary day of seeking them and other migratory species in the dense tops of aspen and pine that darken Taos Ski Valley, we stopped for gas. As I stepped out of Glenn’s van, which I named “The Birdmobile,” a Bullock’s Oriole came flapping literally “out of the blue.” Like a cinder it flew into an oak then whisked itself into a far cottonwood. But, not before we got a breathtaking view of its orange breast, face, and undertail coverts and we got to brim yet again with the yes of why we do this.
3) The more difficult the birds and words, the better the search.
I have enjoyed dozens of striking Tufted Titmice, Carolina Chickadees, and Eastern Bluebirds, and though these are wonderful birds to see, they are also easy to find. Perhaps because of their greater numbers, I can’t recall any of the days, hours, or minutes that led to my glimpsing them arise from a bush or rhapsody from a spring-budded branch. In comparison, I will never forget our search for the American Dipper, for, not having seen the bird, it now flies about more powerfully in my imagination than any of the birds I see on a daily or weekly basis.
4) Birds and words can show up on different continents in different plumages.
In October, my husband and I were birding with friends along the Guango River in Ecuador when our tour guide pointed to fluttering amidst the choppy river spume and cried out “White-capped Dipper!”
There it was. Not the American, but even better. This one was white as a cloud with night-black wings and a few sputtering ink spots to make him more striking. And, all this on a tiny, adorable brave body, jumping into the speeding waves and then out again.
5) The joy of words and birds outshine rejection.
And, finally, I had seen a Dipper, if a different type and at a different time than I had hoped. And, this one was so close, I dropped my binoculars and watched it dance on a boulder, skittering close to the scary waves, then hopping back, pulling close again, then popping back to safety once more. My heart was like those waves, then, rushing along and spewing. And, though rejection is constant in the thrilling activities of birding and writing, every bird and word that flew made this one well worth it. Not to mention the resplendent sunsets, the sweet-smelling pines and grasses, and the endless fresh winds that make the journey joyful.
Elizabeth White-Olsen is the director and lead editor of Writespace, Houston’s newest literary arts organization. She has two Master’s of Fine Arts degrees, one in Poetry from Texas State University and one in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She has published poems and articles in print journals and online, and is currently at work on a young adult novel and a collection of essays about birdwatching.
Writespace’s live link is writespacehouston.org.