Mulan Pan | prose

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i. Set up a bird feeder outside your window

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The great thing about birds is that they’ll come flocking to any place with birdseed. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy; my first feeder was a school project slapped together with scissor-cut milk cartons and string. After a long, stressful day of kindergarten, or on a sleepy summer afternoon, I’d meander my way over to the windowsill, delighting in all the passerine passerbys. Clutching colored pencils in my stubby hands, birds were both my companions and my muse as my feathery friends decorated my cheap printer paper. I proudly declared I would one day become an artist and soar.

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Back to the matter at hand. A bird feeder is a great way to attract a variety of visitors to your yard. If you pay attention, you may even be able to pick out the regulars, like those cute goldfinch mates or that talkative robin. In times where you just want a break from the demanding duties of everyday life, you can always return to your bird feeder and relish in the simple joys that it brings.

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ii. Go out on hikes.

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Hiking is riskier than simply observing birds from the comfort of your home; there may be times when braving through the pockets of bugs and humidity doesn’t reveal any passerine pals, but when you’re surrounded by the trees, the rustling branches and chittering bugs, that’s when you really fall in love with birdwatching. 

From third grade onwards, I started taking private art lessons at a studio. No longer could my afternoons be spent lazily waiting for the occasional bluebird to stop by for a snack. I actively sought to capture those birds on the page. I watched as chickadees and thrushes bloomed across the paper in inks and watercolors, the messy, delightful touch of a child slowly refined over weeks and months and years. 

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I’m glad that those art lessons pushed me to schedule time just for hiking and birdwatching, for it taught me that blood, sweat, and tears sow greater rewards. Window watching is a fleeting, flighty sort of happiness. There’s a bone-deep kind of satisfaction that comes with knowing that what you made wasn’t just scribbled out on a whim, but carefully, meticulously rendered. It makes those birds dancing, flying, singing for you in their natural habitat all the more thrilling. Despite the mountain of eraser shavings and tapestry of bug bites, the hardships you endured along the journey are a testament to the worth of the beautiful sight at the end.

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iii. Bird identification is a rabbit hole of a hobby.

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It’s less about the gratification when correctly identifying a bird and more about that nagging sensation when you can’t. Once you recognize a couple species, those you can’t start sticking out like potholes that you need to fill. Besides the obvious blue jays and robins, you want to be able to spot the subtle striations of a sparrow versus a wren. You want to be able to distinguish birds not just by plumage, but by their calls too. You want to know their nesting habits, which trees are the most appealing for woodpeckers. You want a snapshot of the rare orange-crowned warbler. You want to be able to identify all the varying songs of a mockingbird. 

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Once you can identify your shortcomings, it’s only natural to want to improve. It’s a kind of yearning that borders on need. I want to improve my anatomy and perspective drawing. I want to learn the shading techniques for different textures. I want to get better at capturing every fine feather filament on the paper until the final product is as lifelike as its inspiration.

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I want to learn everything. I want to know everything. I want.

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When you’re around birds for long enough, they start leaving bits of them behind in you. There is so much ambition to be held in their tiny bodies. I’d listen to them boldly cry out to the world, watch them zip through the canopy, and feel myself grow restless. I’d gaze up at the sky and feel my frustration at my groundedness grow.

Like birds, I can’t help but want to fly.

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iv. Some days you may not see any birds at all. That’s normal.

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When you’re no longer someone who enjoys watching birds but a birdwatcher—when your hobby becomes inextricably tied with you—you’ll inevitably end up unsatisfied with where you stand. Maybe there’s a rare bird that eludes you, teasing the edge of your ears but always out of sight. Perhaps you can’t quite capture the essence of birds in flight, always too blurry or too stiff. Is it your substandard tools? Lack of practice? Lack of time? Some ineffable, intangible, but irrefutable part of you that simply isn’t good enough? 

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The better you get at something, the harder it is to meet your rising standards. Around the time I grew more serious about art, I started spending more time in the studio polishing pieces to submit to competitions, all centered around topics like “dreams” or “holidays” or “vacation.” The subject matter wasn’t important; what was important was that some of my drawings won, and I had to improve if I wanted to keep winning. How could I call myself an artist if my compositions were not dynamic, my rendering not fastidious, my perspective not perfect? The quality of my art corresponded to its value because art was no longer a relaxing means of self expression, but the foundation of my ego.

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Enough about me. The point is when all your effort yields nothing but disappointment, it’s hard to remember why you bothered in the first place. You trekked for hours and couldn’t even spot a sparrow. You spent fifty hours and countless sleepless nights painting for a dream-themed contest and there wasn’t even an honorable mention to your name. The worst part is you know it didn’t deserve to win anything. All the mistakes plaguing your work are like stones weighing your feathered body down.

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It’s almost humiliating. That you’ve poured so much of yourself into what you’re good at—what you’ve defined yourself by— for it to yield so little in return. 

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v. It’s okay to quit.

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At this point, you’re probably wondering if it is worth pursuing those nebulous dreams of grandeur, of devoting your time to those far-reaching heights when the process has only brought you unhappiness. You’ve learned that 85% of songbirds die in migration, that few survive the voyage from their nest to the unknown land across the ocean, and the more hollow-boned part of you recoils in fear. This is a journey so perilous, only the strongest and luckiest may survive. How have you measured up?

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But remember, you are a birdwatcher, not a bird. Unlike the latter, you can choose to give up your epithet at any time. 

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If birdwatching is weighing you down instead of bringing you joy, just quit. Trust me, I stopped drawing for similar reasons. No longer would I have to search for substandard muses, stare at my lackluster coloring, bear another second working on a subject I did not care about that I knew would end up looking like garbage anyways. At the time, it felt so freeing, like I had been unshackled. I stopped drawing and never looked back.

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After tearing up the foundation of what used to be integral to you, it makes sense that it will take a while to fill the gap where birds once perched. That period of emptiness afterwards is normal. It’s an essential part of growing up. Don’t regret your decision. Giving up your frivolous hobbies is a sign of maturity, and this time can now be used for the things that really matter, whatever they may be. It is not a surrender, but a defiance of the sunk-cost fallacy. 

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Migration is a natural process. The birds have left, so there’s no point in dwelling on their feathered forms, no point in sketching out their flighty poses. It’s not like birdwatching was ever going to be more than a hobby. You were never going to fly.

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vi. Take down your bird feeder. It’s winter. All the birds have left.

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vii. After they’re gone, you’ll see what you’ve always known about birds:

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That you were a fool to believe anything could replace your love for birdwatching. That you were always more of a bird than you wanted to be. There’s some part of them in your blood that causes the iron to align with the magnetic field and point to where they are. Every inch of you is a needle converging at the horizon, and you’ve only ever been hurting yourself by trying to seek another path. This yearning cuts far deeper than failure ever did.

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You know that I am only using second person to hide from the truth: that I was too afraid to brave the storms and follow the birds I loved into the skies. That my fear left me stranded in the barren winterscape, a tragic figure doomed to stagnancy. I realized far too late that I needed art to feel creatively fulfilled. To feel whole.

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You know that this was never about birds in the first place. That this extended metaphor about bird migration was just a flimsy facade to frame quitting as inevitable instead of the result of cowardice. The raw truth was I thought my art wasn’t good enough to make it, so I stopped entirely.

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Though, that begs the question… when was being “good enough” the reason why I made art? Before the convoluted bird analogies, before the art contests, before I was old enough to think about flaws, I made art because it made me happy. When did my happiness stop being the priority?

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viii. If there’s a part of you that still loves birdwatching, it’s not too late.

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I know now that the value of my art is not defined by its technical skill or accolades, but by the joy and satisfaction the process can bring. I don’t have to cross an ocean for my passions to be worth investing in; it’s always worth making time for something I love.

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There is still some child-like part in me that wants to fly. I let that child guide me to the oil pastels, to render out a typically black and white bird in spontaneous multicolored hues, unrealistic colors that are undeniably magical. I don’t concern myself with composition or lighting. I don’t care if the guidelines are still visible. This is art that is just for me, and I won’t let my judgment impede my joy for any longer. 

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I step back and survey the piece. It’s not perfect, but even so, “artist” easily slides back into my chest like it never left. The funny thing about migration is if you make a home for birds in your heart, they will always come back.

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ix. Get your bird feeder ready for spring.