here i sing

Even the birds looked different.

5 a.m. I walked out of the airport. Its gray concrete walls looked like the remains of a dismembered Klingon kingdom on some episode of Star Trek.

I knew Armenia would be distinct. But I was not expecting to push my way through the crowd of chain smoking relatives and taxi cab drivers, clad in black, to look up into the sunrise and notice the birds were different.

Thinner. Smaller. More pointy—wings, beaks and tails edged in opposite directions. Dozens flew in a tight circle above my head. Were they orbiting above a piece of carrion? Was it me?

Eight years of living in Armenia; eight years of noticing how the tiny birds point and circle.

4 p.m. I walked out of Estonia’s main airport–a small capsule of Scandinavian design. White walls, light beech wooden beams, ergonomic furniture and coffee served way too dark.

It was summer and I didn’t hear the sounds that I grew up with in Missouri–cicadas serenading us to sleep each night with their throbbing buzz or a lawnmower revving up and spewing grass clippings into humid air. 

There was a new sound: seagulls. Large white birds flew above us in the parking lot; our twelve bags of luggage in tow for a ten year residency. Armenia’s birds were busy but silent. Estonia’s birds were large. Their voices screeched and echoed. They were aggressive–waiting for the moment your back turned to attack ham sandwiches roasting on a beach towel in the sun. 

My kids have a different soundtrack for their childhood. No cicadas or lawn mowers. They hear seagulls and the fog horns echoing off the harbor of the Baltic Sea. 

Two months ago, we bought a house in St. Paul. It was freezing cold the day we moved into our 1938 Dutch Colonial with the house number spelled out in cursive green above the front door. I have yet to see our neighborhood without chunks of ice and snow covering yards that may someday remind me of home–lawn mowers buzzing. 

This week, the birds came back from their winter hiding and after twenty years overseas, they sound different. I cannot see them; tiny and nestled in a knotted lacework of tree branches. But these birds sing. They start with a high note and then drop down a perfect fourth, followed by three piercing chirps–all the same note. 

9 a.m. I walk my dog along the soccer field of St. Cate’s and hear another bird sing in response–the exact same key. High note, down a fourth, three piercing chirps. Rue doesn’t notice them, too busy sniffing the ground for some remnant of friends. The campus students rushing to class are too hurried to hear their song. Maybe Minnesota has been home so long, they no longer notice the perfect fourths of birds.

I like these new birds because, like me, they sing. Some not quite as good as others–one always sings in minor third instead of the happy perfect fourth. But he keeps singing and others respond.

Living overseas has been exotic. 

Traveling to places many dream of. Sitting for tea in unnoticed homes and cultures. I’ve been loved by Jasmina, Andranik, Marine, Kristin, Riina, Raili, Tanya.

Living overseas has been painful. 

Sections of me died–the circling birds recognized good prey. My parts were rummaged and stolen away–I left my beauty out in the sun to be enjoyed, and it was taken; flown over the sea to some rock I cannot reach; ignored or not replaced.

I am learning to do what came so easily when I was a child and teen–growing up with the nightly lullabies of cicadas. I am re-learning to sing. 

And I am relearning to forgive. Regrets pile up. I start to blame anyone left standing around me–why did they allow me to go silent? Who took my songs? Show me the craftsman who constructed this brass bird cage! I will load my burdens onto his pliers so he can never again twist someone behind a closed door.

When the blaming ends, I stand alone.

No one removed my vocal cords, I stopped believing songs could soar in Armenia. No one attacked me from behind; I lost hope in a better story in Estonia. No one meant to hold me inside a trap; I never knew where I wanted to fly. 

Now I hear a new bird’s song. 

In my college music theory class, Dr. J taught us to recognize the pitches of a musical interval by this: “Sing the first two notes of ‘Here Comes the Bride,’ and there you hear the perfect fourth.” He looked down at us, his reading glasses perched at the end of his nose.

My new neighborhood’s birds are proclaiming that someone is coming. Someone is singing in response.

I have a feeling that someone is me. 

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