Oh, the hours that I have spent contemplating my lack of whistling ability! Oh, the lamenting!

I have literally spent no time grieving over this. Why bother? I have resolved that I missed the whistle gene, and that’s okay. Except for birding…

I would love to whistle like the songbirds that visit my feeder, but long ago I ditched that thought. I can do a decent barred owl, but that doesn’t involve whistling. My red-shouldered hawk is not too shabby, but that’s only because it’s more like a shriek – that I can do.

That is the backstory to help you understand the challenges a recent gift has afforded me. For my birthday last month, my son, Joe, gave me a book and asked if I would like to read it together. Joe likes birds like I do, so he thought of me when he discovered Conversations with Birds – The Metaphysics of Bird and Human Communication by Alan Powers.

It may be helpful for you to know that Joe is a philosophy professor. I told Joe that I loved the idea. The title had something for me – conversations with birds, and something for him – metaphysics.

It is a running joke with me, myself, and I that I cannot understand the true meaning of the word metaphysics. I asked Joe if, after finishing this book, would that change. He was confident that it would not. He gets me.

We plunged in. Our first goal was to go through chapters one and two. Chapter One is Basic Bird, with a minor emphasis on the mourning dove. Chapter Two gets down to business – The Year of the Oriole. That is ironic since the baseball team of the same name, which is my team, is having their best year in recent history, a fact that I mentioned to Joe and one of the ways that I seem to stray off topic.

Joe is good at stretching me, so I was prepared to look up words as I read. I was not prepared for the number of musical terms the author uses. And I was taken aback on Page One when he stated, “Now we advance to whistling. Start with the minor third, usually descending, like the first two notes of our national anthem…”

I texted Joe with a reminder that I can’t whistle. This is something that hasn’t held me back in life and I wondered if it would hold me back as we read this book. As I said, I’m reconciled to the fact that I’m a non-whistler. He assured me that I would be fine.

Just in case, I googled “why can’t I whistle?”

Google excels at responding to simplicity in their searches. I was immediately linked to vox.com where on 8/13/15, Joseph Stromberg wrote an in-depth article including techniques to practice. In no time flat, I began to whistle. I won’t be entering any competitions. But, there is hope for this 67-year-old. Evidently you can teach an old older person a new trick.

You might be expecting me to share a video of me whistling. Well, don’t hold your breath. I’m pretty transparent with my writing, but at this point, I’m just a baby whistler!

I will share this video of a high-achieving whistler instead. Enjoy!