My Magic Moments

I had a lovely day in Costa Rica, where the people are sweet, the scenery is beautiful, the fruits and flowers and coffee fill your nostrils with happiness, and the pleasure of Pura Vida rides on the breeze... and I got to practice my Spanish, something the warm Ticos are happy to indulge.

But my favorite moment was when I walked into the backyard behind a souvenir shop and found a large black toucan with a yellow beak and lime green eyes, and two green parrots in large bare cages. The parrots especially were depressed, but I know that they like singing, and I simply long to evoke their liveliness, their interest, their parroty joie de vivre... so, first I said "hi" with a parrot accent. Ooops. I tried again, "hola." Nada. Then I sang "Some enchanted evening" from South Pacific. I squeaked along very badly, but parrots seem to like that song, and after a couple of verses the smaller parrot stretched her neck and squeaked back. Then I tried humming the Ode to Joy theme from Beethoven's 9th. She liked that one; she sang along towards the end of the second round, coming in right on the note, as if to show me she knew the tune, and she did!

At that point the toucan who had begun his rather high and harsh barking in a descending cadence also began to dance; clearly, he wanted some attention, so I did my best to mimic his utterance and we played together for a moment -- oh, those lime green eyes, what a charmer! And now my parrot was a bit jealous -- ah, relationship complexities. Back to the parrot and desperately searching for parroty tunes. She liked the Welsh hymn, Let All Things Now Living, well enough. Then I remembered -- thank you, Barbara Castillo! -- that I know a song in Spanish, and, with great delight, sang "Despierta, mi bien, despierta. Mira, que amanecio...." She got quite excited and engaged me in a duet for a couple of rounds of the whole song. I told her in Spanish that she was the bird of my heart and said good-bye. It was hard for me to wake up her liveliness and engage her heart, just to leave. But this is what I know, that a real moment of love understood between two beings can warm a very cold and dark night of body, soul, or both. I know that I left a spark of my love with her; the other parrot never received it, but watched the two of us fairly impassively. This communion across species is a joy of joys for me; that green parrot who found the heart to be roused left a spark of her love, too, and I shall be warmed. I shall be warmed.