Songs, starlings, and a little zing

Mind Your Own Map | Vol. 5 🧠

Hello & happy September!

If you read my last essay, A summer of surprises, you already know the recent months have worn me down. I wrote about my belly-flop into self-pity and how I coped by shrinking my needs, dreams, and personality. This strategy held 0% satisfaction, but THANKFULLY! it’s possible to make healthier changes, even if they’re teeny-tiny. So that’s what I’m doing.

The last several nights, I’ve been creating again. Nothing fancy or monumental, which is precisely why I love it. I made a map of my mind (which you’ll see below) and I’m working on more limericks for levity. I’m creating because I want to, get to, and feel most like myself when I do. There’s a little zing returning to me as I click clack at my keyboard. No expectations. Just curiosity for what my brief time at the desk might hold. 🥳

Today’s newsletter is the fifth in my MYOM series. If you’re a newer Nōto reader, let me explain:

MIND YOUR OWN MAP is a prompt to visualize and connect what we’re learning, thinking, and experiencing.

I start my mind maps without any real idea of where they’ll take me, though I often have topics I hope to explore. Any recommendations or reviews you see later in the newsletter are directly related to a node (topic) from today’s mind map.

Alright, enough of my preamble! I hope you enjoy!
—E.T.

On the mind lately

Japanese author/illustrator, Taro Gomi, was the first node.

Putting this mind map together was energizing because I realized:

1. I’m still fascinated by a lot, even though life got jumbled and I didn’t give my interests or curiosities much airtime this summer.

2. A theme: it’s clear I’ve felt stuck in this strange passage of time where I’m longing for what could be (or what I think should be), and confused about what life is. Somehow, in the middle of this, I have to learn to soar, even as external forces try to hamper my joy.

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Merlin 🐦

Back in June, I learned about the Merlin Bird ID from

Emily Wilson

’s lovely newsletter. I rushed toward any birdsong or call I heard in the backyard, holding my phone up to the trees in quiet excitement. That first night, the app identified ten bird species near our grove!¹

Aaron witnessed me beaming over this discovery and joined me the next night. Picture two grown-ups running outside the house barefooted, competing to see whose phone could identify a new bird first. The app captured this funny soundbite:

Murmuration 🩰

I took my newfound bird fascination to the library and started The Bird Way.² It’s probably a fantastic book if you have existing ornithology³ knowledge, but I wasn’t ready to learn a gigantic set of vocabulary and species so I didn’t finish it. However, I did make a note about the murmuration of starlings because I wanted to look up a stunning short film (by Neels Castillon) I’d watched years ago.

If you can view this from a screen larger than your phone, I highly recommend it! It’s mesmerizing. I want to watch more films that evoke this kind of slow, artful beauty.

While there are trademark behaviors that one can use to identify species—the teeter-bob of a spotted sandpiper, for instance—individual birds are every bit as distinctive as we humans are. Members of a species may share basic dance steps, but each bird is a ballerina with her own unique style of moving, foraging, talking, courting, mating.

—Jennifer Ackerman, The Bird Way

Wings Still Wet 🦋

Rebekah Taussig

, one of my favorite writers and the author of Sitting Pretty, is now on Substack (

This Too

). I’m delighted, truly. Her writing is both gentle and subversive, and I’ve always been eager to read anything she shares.

In her newest essay, “Wings Still Wet,” Rebekah Taussig asks three questions that have stuck with me as I consider how my story and its complexities intersect with my husband’s and stepson’s stories:

Can we open up our stories and still survive? Can we stay tethered to the full range of the beauty and tenderness and terror coursing through this place? Can our stories swaddle us – and also unfurl like a never-ending red carpet that disappears into the horizon? I want to figure out how to tell that kind of story.

Little Blue 🌀

Aaron and I saw Jacob Collier perform a few months ago, and we both agreed—future concerts (unless it’s Collier’s), would not compare. His musical artistry and mastery are unparalleled.⁴ Jacob Collier moved effortlessly between instruments, playing songs from his new album, Djesse Vol. 4, as well as some older songs and a few covers.

Jacob Collier performing at the Coca-Cola Roxy.

The venue was abuzz with a dynamic, technicolor energy and I don’t think I’ve been around so many people smiling at one time! As I stood with other sweaty, wholehearted fans and sang along with the audience choir,⁵ I felt like humanity had a chance after all.

That night, Collier sang a personal favorite, “Little Blue.” He purposely wrote this song open-ended, “for people to come in and find whatever they need to find in the song, or see whatever they need to see in the song.”

Home is Where the Birds Sing 🏡

Yes, yes, yes. It’s another mention of birds for today’s newsletter. I can’t help myself, it’s the theme that keeps popping up!

Home is Where the Birds Sing is a gorgeous children’s book written by Cynthia Rylant and illustrated by Katie Harnett. This book is an ode to homes that are a haven of rest, creativity, belonging. (I wish this was the case for everyone everywhere…) The illustrations depict diverse families, lots of textures and patterns, and birds hidden on every spread throughout the book.

I’ve been introducing new picture and board books in our home lately, and look forward to adding this to the rotation.

Homesickness 🌏

Speaking of home,

Christina Chung

created a comic that accurately highlights the ache to be and connect with family across the globe. The comic’s color palette reminds me of the vintage postage stamps my obaachan (grandma) would use.

It’s been 13 years since I visited my family in Japan, and I often wonder what it would be like to get reacquainted with a country so dear to (and yet far from) me. Although I never lived in Japan full-time, I went so often as a child it feels like home. I miss it 24/7.

One Summer’s Day 🎹

Lastly, please enjoy this masterpiece by Studio Ghibli’s composer, Joe Hisaishi. “One Summer’s Day” is from Spirited Away and brought me great comfort when I discovered it in 2020.

It turns out, thousands of people share in the same emotions while listening:

It’s wild how music, art, books, films, and nature can speak to us in specific and mutual ways. They bring us a little closer till we realize we aren’t actually in lonely cocoons of our own. We’re in this life-thing together. 🐛

Now it’s your turn!

• What stood out to you from today’s Mind Your Own Map?

• Will you make a mind map and report back on what you discovered?

• Have any recommendations to share as we inch towards autumn?

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1. The species of birds I’ve heard: American Robin, Northern Cardinal, Carolina Wren, Blue Jay, Mourning Dove, Wood Thrush, American Crow, Song Sparrow, Brown Thrasher, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Chimney Swift, Northern Mockingbird, Gray Catbird.

2. I also borrowed The Backyard Birdwatcher’s Bible and Ten Birds That Changed the World, but I couldn’t read them in time and returned them. Maybe I’ll try again soon!

3. The scientific study of birds. (I didn’t know this word till I got the Merlin Bird ID app.)

4. Jacob Collier plays piano, keyboard, percussions, guitar, bass, melodica, etc. And he sings, writes music, produces, teaches, tours…

5. Check out this interview about Jacob Collier’s audience choir experiment.