Gratitude Monday: Feral parrots

Sometimes a girl just needs to step away from the mean streets and take a walk in the clouds. I did that recently when I got a film from the library that my BFF recommended, The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill.

As you know, I tend to treat TV as a talking lamp—I’m usually multi-tasking when there’s something on, and I just connect the dots however I feel like it. If the plot isn’t gripping, I’m not sticking.

But Wild Parrots kept me glued to the screen the entire time. My friend really appreciated the colors—and they’re indeed brilliant. What reached out to me was the gentleness: a guy finds purpose in life from being a neighbor to a flock of wild parrots in San Francisco.

Mark Bittner does not anthropomorphize the birds, or make them his pets. Yes—he gives them all names, he feeds them, and he looks after the ones that are ill. But otherwise he appreciates them and respects them. It’s just beautiful.

Even when it’s time for him to move away from them (and I have to say that the thought of the market rent of that house he was living in is enough to lay me flat), he advocates for them to the City Council. Let them live as they are—don’t exterminate them, don’t put them in the zoo for their own protection, just let them carry on.

I felt so much better about the world after watching this documentary, so I recommend it highly to you. And on Gratitude Monday, I’m very grateful that I got a couple of hours of beautiful enchantment in my life.