Find Your Parrot

 

 

The Rio Grande Valley where I was born and raised is a lush landscape filled with palm trees, tropical plants, and exotic birds.  You could take a native and disorient them– plop them down in any unrecognizable place in the Valley–  and they will know they are still home because of the way it feels on their skin.  They can see, and hear, and smell it.

Of all the exotic species, for me one stands out above all the others: the green parrot.

South Texas is home to both the red-crested green parrot, and the smaller Mexican green parakeet.  They make a different sound, and while the words “parrot” and “parakeet” are generally interchangeable, the parrot is larger than the parakeet.  Everyone I know calls them all “parrots,” and for the purposes of this post, I make no distinction between the two.

I lived in Brownsville until I left for college, and I returned as soon as I was done with school.  It was home for my first real job, my new marriage, and my first two children.

It all began simply with the fact that the native parrots thrilled me.  Everything about them: the way they flew, the noise they made, their brilliant color.  Like efficient fighter pilots, they raced low and fast across the sky, delivering a loud, screeching war cry as they went.  When gathered in large numbers in the trees, they painted it electric green, and joined their voices in a cacophony of noise like a victorious, chanting tribe, unapologetic and proud.

They are magnificent.

So every time I saw one, I thanked God.

Then, when I lived on Robins Lane, I’d be in my yard gardening, or playing with my kids, or lying in my baby pool– yes, I did that, often– and I’d end up talking to God about this or that, or telling Him I loved Him, or thanking Him for all of it, and a parrot would buzz me in a fly-by.  And so it became a conversation between us.  I just knew as certainly as I drew breath that when a parrot came to me, it was Him saying, “I love you, too.”

There were days it was so perfectly timed, it could be nothing else.  A God-wink, a nudge, a small, sincere love note, the picking-up-where-we-left-off-with-each-other from one day to the next.

Then one day, after many years in Brownsville, my husband and I decided it was time to leave the Valley.

The decision was right, but still there were many things about it that hurt a lot.  It required many conversations with the Lord: times I confided in Him my fear of the unknown, and how much I’d miss my family, my home, my parrots.

But I trusted God.  I trusted the story He was writing.  I trusted my husband.  And I was excited, at the same time, for the next chapter in our lives.

The day we moved to Austin, the Texas skies were stormy.  I cried, and prayed, and sang my way up IH-35.  When we arrived at our tiny rental house in Hyde Park, we pulled up beneath the largest, most magnificent rainbow I’ve ever seen.  We were unpacking our many things in load after load into that 800-square-foot cottage, when Derek stopped in the doorway and called to me.  “Babe, come look at this.”  So I did.  I stepped outside into that new air, a different air– a sweet sage, hill country kind of air– and looked up in the direction of his pointed finger.  And there, above my head, sat a row of seven, green parrots on the line.

“You’re home,” God was saying.

I’ve lived in Austin now for four years, and that was the only day I’ve seen my green parrots.  But that was enough.  I’m in a new chapter now.

Most lovers have a language– a dance– of their own.  Nicknames, inside jokes, and games that only they play.  It bonds and sets apart, defines and holds sacred, that relationship above all others.

Well, God does, too.

Listen to me, my babies, if you do nothing else in life, do fall in love with God.  Spend your life growing your own love language with Him: your secret winks and private delights.  Then if all else falls apart and every expectation shatters, if I’m not there to hold your hand or witness your deepest joys and sorrows, your walk will be softer and sweeter and richer.  Nothing else you do will compare with the feeling of resting in the unconditional, never-ending, deep and certain kind of true love that you enjoy with your Creator.

Sometimes I like to imagine getting to heaven.  I picture what it’s like to see Jesus, to fall at His feet overcome with gratitude for all He did to make a way for me where there wasn’t one.  And then I picture Him pulling me up off the floor into a bear hug, and insisting that I go and see all that He’s prepared just for me.  I’m a little fuzzy on some details, like whether my Bernese Mountain Dogs come barreling toward me, or whether my house is more Pacific Northwest-y or Mexico-y.  But with one detail I’m pretty certain: my backyard will have parrots.