Little Bird

A song, a life

This is one of the first videos I ever made of myself playing music. In it, I’m playing a traditional Ukrainian folk song called Malenʹka Ptashka, or Little Bird. Normally, I would have been playing it with my then-husband, who played guitar, but he had recently moved out. We had been playing this music together for almost as long as we’d known each other. But now he had gone, and I was on my own for the first time in fifteen years.

I didn’t have any experience being alone. I was lonely, without knowing how to be. At first, I’d been in a kind of shock. I had a lot of feelings, but didn’t know what to do with them. But, I began to discover—and this is where I say something that’s maybe a little cliché: I still had my music. In this video, I’m both realizing this, and playing, feeling my feelings—and, in expressing them—experiencing a sense of autonomy that I didn’t want, but needed. I’m trying to play dispassionately, to control my emotion, which—although it might be fitting for a dramatic violin concerto—is inappropriate for a simple folk tune.

I’m trying, but failing. It’s a terrifying thing; losing your partner—with whom you’ve shared so much of your life—so much time, as well as your home, pets, children, families, friends. It’s a loss as devastating and full of upheaval as a death—but it’s not a death, or rather the death isn’t of a person, it’s of a thing.

It’s so incredibly hard to start out again on your own, afterward, that I wonder that anybody ever does get divorced. It takes a tremendous amount of strength, I think—to recognize and acknowledge that a relationship should be ended, and then to end it, and then to move on. I think people who have been through a divorce should be given a reward for Bravery and Success in the Face of Everything Falling Apart. Instead, it’s often viewed as a kind of failure.

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Little Bird

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As it happened, my ex-husband (“Jesse” in my memoir) and I remained friends and continued to play music together, alongside—and in spite of—all of the subsequent upheavals that followed our split. There were issues with new partners, with in-laws and friends, with finances, the car, the cat, the house. The fact of us remaining close and continuing to play was confusing and upsetting for other people, but we kept playing and performing—almost in the face of it. I’m glad we did.

One night, a couple of years after we split up, we played at a little bar. I was about to get married to James. His family was in town for the wedding. They came to the show, as did my ex-husband’s new girlfriend. I marveled at this meeting of so many worlds, even if the situation wasn’t perfectly comfortable or fun for everyone. Although by then, most of the people in our lives had accepted that we could maintain a musical connection, without its being a romantic one.

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Here’s a video of us practicing Little Bird, a year after my marriage. In this one, we’re at my new house, waiting for James to get off work so we can all go out for tacos.

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And here’s a recording we made in our friend’s studio, this time as a trio, same song. We had been divorced for 4 years at this point, and had both remarried. James and I moved away not long afterward. I haven’t played much since.

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Little Bird, 10 years later. At my son’s violin recital with his teacher on viola. I had lost my confidence after so many years of not performing. But it was still fun.

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And finally,

My son and I playing Little Bird last year.

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Although geography prevents us from being able to play music together anymore, my ex-husband and I have remained close. He’s one of my best friends. When I watch that first video of Little Bird, I wish I could go back in time and tell me then what me now knows: that everything will come around, and that, no matter what happens, I’ll have the music.