I was busy.
That's how these stories always start.
Thinking about MY things...MY obligations...MY emails that hadn't been returned...or MY laundry that wasn't done...or MY leak at MY home...
Busy.
I was looking down...sitting on a stoop in a public park...when he asked me if I was ok.
He checked in.
A stranger.
I looked up and the first thing I noticed was the bird...
I would find out later that it was a Goffins Cockatoo.
A cockatoo just like this was sitting on this guy's shoulder.
Truthfully, the next thing I noticed was the poop of the cockatoo on the guy's white t-shirt...I suddenly realized that this cockatoo and this guy were besties...I mean, I haven't worn anyone's poop around on my shirt...but I have worn spit up...plenty of times...and I thought of those times...remembered how short the Spit Up Era really is and answered his question.
I was ok...just sitting.
He asked me if I knew Ed Sheeran (yes) and if I'd seen him sing with Andrea Bocceli (yes) -
treat yourself here to that incredible musical gift: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiDiKwbGfIY
That seemed like an unusual opening line...but I went with it.
He asked me if I had seen another amazing singing performance...I hadn't...so he shared his phone with me and I watched it...a four minute video of two children making musical magic...watched it in the cool of the shade in a park...
and that four minute pause was the knob on the telescope that brings things into focus.
When I looked up...I could see.
Really see.
This man with the gentle eyes and scruffy days old white beard, was wearing a vest of loneliness.
It was palpable...and painful.
We talked some more about Maya, his amazing cockatoo. About her playfulness and cleverness and the way the Goffins Cockatoo almost went extinct...but bird lovers from the United Staes and Australia worked together to save the species.
About how he ended up sleeping in his car near the park...how he would find a place to stay.soon.
About his life of knowing that something was wrong with his body - they told him it was polio - but recently discovered through an MRI that it was trauma from forceps
and instead he was diagnosed as having cerebral palsy...
I looked down to see one strong leg and one leg that was so thin it looked painful to walk on.
We talked about our struggles...and the gift of seeing the resilience in the students who graduated from Paradise High School - a town that had been burned to the ground this November - and in particular, a student who painted on his graduation cap the mantra:
Trust Your Struggle
It was then that I learned his name: Tom.
We talked some more about Maya...
as she tickled me with her claws and crawled all over my shoulders.
We both agreed that this park, McKinley Park, was very special...that it brought rest and hope and joy with its big trees, walking path and rose garden.
And, then the spell was broken...real life came tugging back...kids to pick up...places to be.
I said good-bye to Tom...but he stayed with me as I got in my dirty car and imagined having to sleep there.
I found a few dollars and drove down the street to his car...and there he was...back inside.
Did it feel safe?
Claustrophobic?
Frightening?
Comforting?
Desperate?
I knocked on his window and tried to give him a few dollars.
He shooed away the money and paid me back with this truth:
"I wanted to tell you how grateful I am to have had somebody to talk to."
I told him I felt the same...our conversation was a gift.
Sometimes we just need someone to acknowledge that we are on the planet at the same time.
That we are companions on this journey.
As Ram Dass says so well:
We need to know we are not alone.
Tom and Maya gave me that extraordinary gift yesterday.
My gift to you is to share them...for you to see them too.
Be on the lookout for a man with kind eyes and a Goffins Cockatoo named Maya...if you're lucky, you might get to listen to a song...and have a bird dance across your shoulders.
Thank you, Tom...and Maya.
Thank you.
