Nest. Flight. Sky.: an excerpt (and a Netgalley)

This morning, an excerpt from Nest. Flight. Sky., my memoir newly out from Shebooks. Shebooks feature women writers of both fiction and nonfiction. I chose to write about birds and loss and words. To explore the aftermath of mourning, and the women, over time, who have hunted down wings.

Shebooks are available for $2.99, as e-books. Mine can be purchased here. Interested reviewers can contact me for a link to Netgalley.

What is it we are waiting for, when we sit and wait for birds? What do we believe they will fly this way to tell us? Why do we need them—these creatures that sleep with one eye open and sleep, sometimes, even in flight? These evolved dinosaurs with their air-sac bones and their toothless bills and their magnetic sensibilities and their panoply of feathers—tail feathers, flight feathers, semiplumes, filoplumes, bristles, down? These songsters, these architects, these visionaries, these clowns?

Some 150 million years ago, birds found a way to fly. One bird—the bar-tailed godwit—flies from Alaska to New England without stopping—eight days of flight. One bird—the albatross—the globe. Some birds—warblers, flycatchers, hummingbirds—travel at night. In the ache of loss, in the ache of yearning, in the suspense of waiting, what is the science of whoosh?