Songbirds first graced our presence in the Miocene age, 25 million years ago, many millions of years before homo sapiens. Every morning when I sit down to write, I hear them singing. Each day holds a new composition, and I have taken to calling them songbird symphonies. They can be broken into movements as new voices start to sing, and the rhythm and speed varies. The concert ends as my teacup becomes empty, and I leave for my day filled with peace. It is amazing how just the sound of birds can help me to ease into my day. A friend of mine was telling me the story of how she had to comfort her daughter as the little girl watched trees being cut down on an adjoining property for a development. The little girl had learned in school that trees provide oxygen and take in carbon dioxide, our waste product. She had seen a pair of deer standing there with no place to go and she started to cry. I imagined how many homes were destroyed as the trees were chopped; songbird, squirrel, and insect. How many nests ended up going through the shaver? As I sit here in my home and listen to the songbird symphonies I realise just how lucky I am to have access to this beautiful music in the morning. Looking back in geological time I see that we haven’t really been here that long, and that the Earth has changed drastically in the 4.6 billion years it has been around. We were not here first, and we probably won’t be here last. I’ll create the music now.
● About Me
I wrote and published my first blog post on May 26, 2009. I was about to turn 36 and had been accepted to Mount Holyoke College as a non-traditional student, on my way to completing a Bachelor of Arts in English with a minor in Medieval Studies. I had managed, finally, to know what general direction I was traveling. As a self proclaimed voracious reader I knew that I needed a vocation that would allow me to engage daily with words: reading words, writing words, and hearing words. I also needed to eat, so I navigated my way to a teaching position and I began to fine tune my craft. I love to teach and I love my students, but I also needed to continue to hone my own literary technique, voice, and style. I continued my education in order to delve deeper into literature, making connections, and most definitely, writing. I gained more confidence as a reader as well as a writer of both creative and analytical text. That first blog post in 2009 is short, the writing average, and the topic mundane, but as I continued to learn from other writers I began to understand that to become a better writer I needed to write more. Each time I write and release a poem, a post, or a story, I hone my skills. I invite you along for the ride, for this journey of mine as I attempt to wrangle a wealth of ideas and competing directions into an organized freshly paved path to publication. I might get distracted along the way, but sometimes those detours lead us to amazing views and new friends.
Laura Smith Writer 
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