So-Slow Book Club, Week 2: "First birds" and the power of noticing

How can we arrange our lives to help us pay attention?

Welcome to Week 2 of our oh-so-slow book club, friends. (By the way, I’m still deciding on an “official” name for what we’re doing here, and will be asking you for input soon.)

Two things happened in the same half-hour time frame yesterday. First, I was reading the lovely comments in this discussion thread, and realized I haven’t seen many cardinals yet this year. Finally I realized—of course! I moved last spring, and my new home doesn’t have a bird feeder off the dining-room like my old one did. I used to spend hours each week sitting at that table, gazing at birds. I haven’t seen as many cardinals this winter because I haven’t seen as many birds!

Then, when I opened The Comfort of Crows to start this week’s reading, the first line of Week 2 hit me like…well, like a flap of wings, or perhaps a talon, to the face. "According to birding tradition, the first bird you see on the first day of the new year sets the tone for your next twelve months,” author Margaret Renkl writes.

From the large picture windows of my new living room, I still see birds - but from a very different vantage point. They’re soaring off in the distance, living their birdie lives, but we are not as intimate these days. When I see a bird perched on a branch a hundred feet away, I often can’t quite tell what I’m looking at.

How am I supposed to know what the new year will bring if I can’t recognize my first bird?

Obviously this lack of getting all up in my backyard birds’ personal space is something I’ll need to rectify, since watching birds hop and peck and cock their tiny little bird heads has become one of the delights of my early-middle-age. (Not to worry too much, however: I can always do as Renkl did one year when she couldn’t unequivocally identify her pre-coffee “first bird”…she just went with the second as her theme, instead.)

Anyway, this week’s reading made me realize that I am a sucker for customs, like the First Bird tradition, that are built around noticing. You can only identify the first bird of the New Year if you are making a point to notice birds in the first place, after all. And that noticing can often be helped along by design: the attention we pay to the indoor spaces we occupy; the intention poured into the way we engage with our surroundings outdoors, the little rituals we build around seeing, observing, perceiving.

As we gear up for New Year’s Day, I’m thinking about how to craft my days, weeks, and seasons with intention, so that I can give them my fullest attention. Something to think about as I eagerly look forward to noticing my First Bird of 2024, and learning more about what that might mean for the year to come.

I’d love to hear what struck you about Week 2’s reading, and in general, about the idea of preparing to notice. What are some ways you can intentionally arrange your routines, space, or time to better notice what’s happening outdoors?

P.S. From now on, new weekly posts will come out on Fridays. This will give us the weekend to discuss the readings and still stay on “schedule” to wrap up before Christmas next year. In between weekly posts, there will be other fun ways to engage - some free, and some for paid subscribers. Look for a thread on Monday to share your “first bird” of the New Year.

P.P.S. There’s a fun thread for paid subscribers happening right now, where we’re sharing photos of our reading/journaling spaces & ideas for creating more “noticing opportunities” in both our indoor and outdoor spaces. I’d love to see your space!