‘She Is the Icon of All That Is Joyful in the World’
Earlier this year, I was scrolling through TikTok when the sound of a piano, accompanied by a baby bird chirping, stopped my thumb mid-air. In the video, a little green puppet girl with big eyes and two tufts of hair holds a yellow felt bird in a blanket. “Hey, birdie. It’s okay, birdie,” she coos. “I’m gonna take care of you, birdie.” My mind went back to the difficult year I’d just had: the loss of my father to cancer, two consecutive layoffs from jobs I loved.