When I married my husband in 2014 he came with children and birds — two boys and three African Grey parrots.
There are pet people and bird people and on the Venn diagram of those groups I am nowhere.
“What if I can’t stand living with the birds?” I asked him. “Will you choose them or me?” “You,” he said. “But I would be heartbroken.” That was encouraging. I didn’t like the birds or trust them. They came dragging a soundscape of my husband’s prior life — including sounds particular to his ex-wife.
The Greys, weirdly beloved by many people, are messy, destructive and incredibly smart. Like many other things, we stole them for our pleasure and domiciles from the African jungle. Their blood remembers.
My husband’s parrots, all rescues, live in our hall closet turned aviary. Had birds not been part of the marital dowry, that space might have been my cozy writing office. I would be lying if I said I don’t hold it against them. Perhaps it was mutual: Birds do not love change.
The poet in me did, however, salute the poet in them. Deeply associative, they pegged a noise to a gesture or activity with alarming consistency. When one of us came home, they made a tinkling urination noise and a sigh of relief. When one of us left, they made a backpack-zipping noise. When the door to their room was closed, they called, “Goodnight I love you!” The more annoying the sound, the more they cleaved to it: smoke alarms, timers going off, drills repairing bunk beds.
When we had our first baby, my ill will toward them spiked: Why did they, like the baby, require a near-constant stream of feedings and cleaning up? Why were they loud right when the baby was sleeping? Why did they always give me the stink-eye? Everything became personal.
But then one of them seemed to be getting sick. They have sensitive lungs, and my husband detected a wheeze. He put a humidifier in their cage, thinking air quality that more closely resembled their optimal native climate would improve the situation.
It did — but not only in the way we intended. It got so tropical and steamy that the birds, who had been living together as a threesome platonically for over 10 years, got an idea in their groins. Two of them — Gonzo and Peanut — started having loud, unmistakable sex, and behaving like a pair. He regurgitated for her.
They took it a step further and sexiled the third bird, Joey, a traumatized rescue from a negligent previous owner. With the posture of a fairy-tale misanthrope, she slunk into corners to lay unfertilized eggs, guarding them with sad hypervigilance. She chewed her nails and cowered, showing interest in us only on rare Stevie Wonder dance breaks.
Now Peanut and Gonzo wanted her prime egg-hoarded spot, and declared their bond, and status as reproducers, with aggressive zest.
My antipathy aside, as a wife to a man with a past, I admired the parrots for their seemingly uncomplicated romantic self-reinvention. They boldly performed their uni-focus: this tryst is the only thing that matters. Eventually, though, their frenzied “where have you been all my life” mating subsided. Peanut sat on her eggs, a queen. Was I queenly too, nursing on the couch? But then, “candling” eggs with his iPhone light, my husband declared, “They’re fertilized!”
At first, the idea of one more creature to nurture made me dizzy and crazed. Was there no normalcy left? Should we just use our self-employment paychecks as nest padding? Would broke become broken? But my husband wanted to steward the breeding so much, argued it would be great for the boys to have a front-row seat to the life cycle, and offered that we could sell babies as a side business.
The possibility of supporting his passion, their babies bringing us profit, and my nagging politics that all expectant parents have their own right to choose — meant we were sticking with what nature had begun.
And then the baby parrot was born. No matter for what species — beloved or loathed — the birth of a baby overturns all my griping at life. It sits me down in the flipbook lexicon of awe, miracles and the godliness of the everyday.
At first, the newborn parrot resembled a raw chicken thigh, a bundle of goose-bumpy skin with a huge beak and closed, blind eyes. Slowly it got its first feathers, but before that it stumbled around with its mouth wrenched open to be fed, rather violently, by its mother. The newborn can hardly hold its head up, trusting the parents to regurgitate meals round the clock.
“Salute,” I said, unable to make it to the grocery store. “Maybe this is your chance to bond,” my husband suggested, hopefully. My stepkids were hyped, our baby boy flapped his arms. I was in silent, annoyed agreement, tired of being the one unloving, non-animal person in the house. I could vibe with anything postpartum. Nature makes the newling inarguably cute, so we are pulled in, so someone is willing to keep it alive. Which is, as we know, hard work.
What’s it like, being a wild species in a contrived home, far from the flock? Is there an advantage in being bonded to surrogates — our blended family in an urban building?
Perhaps their disorientation is similar to what I experience as a postpartum mom, nursing my baby in the dirty haven of our home, our world reduced to the essentials. But is this better than being swept out with the flock, at the mercy of the concrete jungle — and its mirage of connection in the form of Baby and Me yoga classes? (I prefer my yoga “baby nowhere near me.”)
Truth was, I felt tremendous empathy for the parrots, love’s prebiotic: They were my sole mommy group not on social media. The male hustled back and forth from food bowl to the nest box, overfeeding his mate so she could feed the baby. Surprisingly, the baby bird noises were adorable to me. As the dinosaurian creature tripped over itself in an unconscious calculus to receive the most maternal body heat and sustenance, I thought, I could like you guys, get over myself, maybe even bond.
Eventually and quickly they grew into the full-size version of themselves and I retreated. But they have since birthed a few clutches, and each time, I spike postpartum hope, a cuddly, amazed attraction. At least I like them in their raw form, born and unlearned. They remind me of how birth can soften us immeasurably. We are just creation playing its long dice game, no better or more important than anything with wings, hind legs, scales.
I cannot force affinity with the adult birds, growing jealous when guests find them cool. But not breaking my husband’s heart still matters more. And I’m grateful that the parrots continue to reproduce, to teach me, and our children, that closeness to something is a birthright.
Sara Nolan teaches personal essay writing to teenagers and adults.