Singing for Survival

(Three-minute read)

Since writing my first blog post, I’ve been thinking of ways to follow writer Melissa Kirsch’s advice and not only let loose my full splendor, but spend myself with springtime abandon! As I ponder the possibilities, it occurs to me that nature never deliberates about such things.

In West Virginia, daffodils and forsythias let loose their bright yellow blooms weeks ago. The gentle, creamy-white and dusty-rose blossoms of hellebores, also called the Lenten rose, emerged even earlier. 

On these still-chilly mornings, I lie awake before dawn and listen for the first bird to sing. Invariably, it is the American robin, letting loose a string of cheery, singsong notes. If you don’t know the robin’s voice, you can hear it here ML168300 – American Robin – Macaulay Library.

I’d almost guarantee you’ll hear this ubiquitous bird, once you know what it sounds like. You might want to learn the robin’s song now, for soon it will mingle in a pre-dawn chorus of Northern cardinals, chickadees, tufted titmice, song sparrows, and others, spending themselves with abandon! 

Indeed, these birds’ very lives depend on song. They vocalize to defend breeding territory and to attract a mate. In spring, their rapturous melodies have a singular purpose: survival of the species. 

This concept of singing for survival struck me deeply in an essay written recently by Alyona Synenko, who lives by the Black Sea in Odesa, Ukraine Opinion | Losing Hope in Ukraine Made Me Feel Freer – The New York Times. While most of her friends and family have left the war-torn country, Alyona has stayed, and, about a year ago, she began singing lessons. 

In a neighborhood where airstrikes shatter windows and power outages cause blackouts, she visits her teacher’s apartment, practicing scales while he plays an electric piano. Alyona is 42 years old and never imagined she would sing. Yet, as she lost hope that peace, and her loved ones, would ever return, she found, in her anger and feelings of powerlessness, “a new freedom to do anything I wanted.”

Alyona says learning to sing “gave me back a sense of control.” She found herself “enjoying the moment, instead of worrying about the uncertainties of the future or mourning the past life that would not return.” In this way, singing adds new meaning to her life. 

I imagine Alyona lost in the moment, present only to her own voice, even when, at any moment, her life might be imperiled. I think of how much easier it is for those of us who enjoy safety, far from a war zone, to act on our passions … if only we will.

Perhaps the symphony of birdsong that is forthcoming in the weeks ahead will remind us to pursue what we love, as if our lives depend on it.