the 2 Js — human, avian
I had finished my isometric exercises on the top level of the grandstand at Aquatic Park and was about to randomly flip to a page of Ryōkan when a strikingly-garbed gentleman pushing an e-scooter and bearing a regal macaw (also clad in the same colors as its human) glided past. They stopped a few meters on as the man leaned his scooter on the low wall, bending down allowing his bird to hop and perch the bird on it.
Walked casually up to them, bade them good morning, asking if I could take their picture, and he brightly assented. Introduced myself, and thus began a cool convo of colorful bits of history (personal and otherwise) that twirled and swirled around the slim and unexpected branch of this fine morning.
 |
 |
As it turns out, Jasper the macaw, at a regal 55 years of age is older than Jesse who is in his late 40s and has had the avian in his family since before he was born. His family lived in West Berkeley, by the numbered streets (which I know quite well, having lived in Berkeley myself for the better part of a quarter century). Jesse's grandfather, he said, was a mentor to Huey P. Newton of the Black Panther movement in Oakland back in the day; a striking fact, echoes of which I glimpsed in the bits of body art peeking out from the collar of the man's shirt, along his neckline.
These days, his side hustle is a street act with the macaw at Fisherman's Wharf and other tourist locales in the city, a respectable trade (and this explained the striking uniformity of the man's clothing with the avian's); and he alluded to an earlier life of duress and harsh turns, with the present years being a blessed escape from all that. I believed Jesse. In the timbre of his voice, and the words he chose to utter, which included grace-notes of the religion of my own grandparents and parents, sounded the truth.
Meanwhile, as we chatted, Jasper casually and intentionally walked up the low wall to me and, as I extended my arm in invitation, he walked up it and perched companionably on my shoulder. Jesse said he only does that to humans the bird deems adequately serene ::chuckle::. I was, of course, honored and delighted.
I learned where they lived in the City, and how they survive on its surprising largesse, given the imagination with which one can render an inter-species lifelong relationship into story — which then can be potentially shared with an audience of random citizens and tourists alike. In the language of humans (English, largely), and in that of blue & yellow macaws (Psittaciformish? yeah, surely).
There is a kind of music in all that, and it was certainly present in the conversation I had with Jesse this morning, much of which isn't divulged in this brief note of it. The lacunae are intentional, not everything needs to be written down and shared here, and should be rendered only in memory.
About which... well, that is a theme for another day, another ß post in these precincts. I bade them aloha at the end, new friends of flesh and feather, fire and firmament.