Tale of the Talking Bird

Tale of the Talking Bird
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Life as an indie musician has its ups and downs. One night, you’re flying high after performing for a room full of appreciative people; the next night, you’re writing a song to the rhythm of your balding tires scraping up against the wheel bearings of your 14-year old car. I’ll admit, this has made me a bit of an ‘inspiration junkie’ at times.

Every few weeks, I have to seek out my ‘fix’. There are times when I just need that little push of inspiration. I like listening to people who like to talk about the ‘journey’ from a real place. Kevin Hart is one of those people for me. So today, I decided to search through my recently-downloaded OWN app, and found an interview Oprah had done with him a back in 2014.

He lost his mother to cancer several years prior, and they got into a discussion about how he now regards her as an angel – Oprah referred to those who have gone on before as “Angels whose names we now know”. There are times when I have experienced this reality up close and personal, but from time to time, the critic/realist in me creeps up and causes me to question what I have experienced.

I should say now, that I’ve always had an interesting relationship with birds. My mother loved them – she always kept parakeets and finches in the house when we were growing up, and we gave them biblical names like, “Obedience” “Patience” and “Deliverance”. We were pretty hardcore. She read us her favorite short story, Edgar Allen Poe’s, “The Raven” on numerous occasions. She had a pet finch when she passed away that my sister and her family recently buried wrapped in a lap cloth my mother had made, which seemed completely fitting.

But to be honest, birds have always creeped me out a little. Nevertheless, they have frequently acted as harbingers or presages that were there to deliver a message, or foretell things to come.

I remember sitting in the computer lab in college when I had a 20-page paper to write, and I was at the point of near-tears, when a sparrow came up to the window, and started singing a song, seemingly meant just for me. Something told me to stop what I was doing, and pay attention to the little birdie while he sang his song. I always felt that that song was meant to remind me that I had the know-how and the fortitude to push through this particularly difficult assignment – and I did.

About 4 months after my mother passed, I was going for a power walk along an isolated hiking trail near my home. As I got closer to my destination, I noticed that there were at least 200 birds circling overhead. After a point, they started squawking and shrieking – like something from Hitchcock’s “The Birds”. It was pretty creepy. I looked up towards the ominous sky, and thought – “Would you all calm down? Jeez.” Not 20 seconds later, I heard a loud “POP!” and fell to the ground, screaming in pain. My left ankle had dislocated and my foot buckled up under me.

When I finally gathered myself on that freezing cold January ground, all I could do was claw my way on my hands and knees the 500 feet I still had to go to get back to my car. My ligaments have yet to fully recover. Darned if those shrieking things weren’t trying to tell me to be careful.

So, although I don’t have a great love for birds, I’ve learned to stop and pay attention any time they make their presence known. Thankfully, their message is normally one of comfort. When I’m missing my mom, I often see a cardinal perched outside my door on the car’s side mirror, happily bouncing from car to car. Or, I’ll walk outside, and a blue jay will fly 2 feet in front of me. The predictability of these birds’ attempt to provide comfort in my mother’s absence is almost startling.

So, on this Partly Cloudy June day, I’m watching the Kevin Hart interview and listening to him say he knows his mother is with him as he’s accepting the NAACP’s “Entertainer of the Year” award. Enter my Inner Critic. I literally stopped the interview, and sat back in my chair. I said aloud – “Yeah, well, that’s a nice thought, but… I think we tell ourselves these things to make ourselves feel better about losing someone. There’s nothing wrong with carrying that hope in your heart, but to say…” Just then, a little sparrow landed on the window sill, not 18 inches away from my head – a window sill I have never seen any bird land on, ever.

He started to sing very politely at first – his head darting about. Then he let out a series of squawks that almost carried the air of a rebuke – as if to say, “Now, don’t make me have to do this again!” The funny thing was, if I hadn’t stopped the interview and leaned back to question the whole direction of their conversation, I wouldn’t have heard him, and he would have been just out of my sight line. The minute he flew away, tears began to roll down my eyes, and a deep knowing came over me that this little ‘visit’ was more than coincidental.

I recently decided to scroll back through my mother’s Facebook timeline – something I’ve never really had had the emotional wherewithal to do. As expected, it was all flowers, and rainbows and scripture memes and… of course, birds. She seemed to have a way of communicating with them – like they had a secret language that only she could understand.

It seems that she still has a fondness for the little creatures in the afterlife. I’d like to think that they have developed a special relationship now – one of mutual respect and understanding. Maybe the love that she showed them during her time here on earth has allowed her to request the delivery of important messages to those she loves.

Of course, there’s a part of me that thinks that’s a lotta ‘hooey’. But you better believe that I will never dismiss a message from my little winged friends – my Mama taught me better than that.

Vocalist and songwriter Dara Tucker is establishing herself as one of the premiere voices in contemporary music. From opening for Gregory Porter, to appearing on the Tavis Smiley Show, to winning the silver medal & the Ben Tucker Jazz Award in the prestigious, “American Traditions Competition” (2017), Dara Tucker is making her mark in the world of jazz and beyond with a blend of soul, Americana, Gospel and jazz that is uniquely her own.

In the past few years alone, she was named a finalist in the Mid-Atlantic Jazz Vocal Competition, and won the “Nashville Independent Music Award” for best jazz vocalist. She has performed at the San Jose Jazz Festival, the Festival of Arts and Ideas, The Takoma Park Jazz Fest and the iRock Jazz Fest.

Her 4th studio album, Oklahoma Rain (2017), showcases her as a formidable songwriter, able to express love, loss and healing in one fell swoop. Having performed on many of the major jazz stages in the US, including The Blue Note (NYC), Snug Harbor (New Orleans) and Scullers (Boston) with jazz luminaries such as Peter Bernstein, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Charlie Hunter and Helen Sung, Dara Tucker is poised to establish herself as one of the fresh, contemporary voices that will help to seamlessly move one of music’s greatest traditions into the 21st century.

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