Motek, The Mindfulness Bird

That is, until he fell into a depression

Photo by henri meilhac on Unsplash

The first time I met Mimi — we were sizing each other up to see if we were roommate material — she greeted me at the door with a yellow-eyed parrot plunked on one of her shoulders. In between asking friendly questions and showing me around her well-appointed apartment, she cooed at the parrot and invited me to admire him as well. He looked like he was wearing a shiny green bib (V-shaped) over a yellow onesie. He stood maybe six inches high.

Immediately I grasped that Mimi and the parrot were a packaged deal, and I hesitated. See, my last roommate had kept a parrot too, and I couldn’t stand him. He was loud and obnoxious, squawking ceaselessly and demandingly, for no reason at all except to irritate me. Still, the bird I was looking at seemed all right, so I accepted the unspoken condition — thou shalt tolerate my parrot — because I liked Mimi and her apartment, too.

The bird was a Senegal parrot, which meant he’d never become a talker. He did learn to say his name, though — Motek. And “Bye Bye.” Also “Hi.”

Don’t think he was unintelligent, though. Motek may not have talked, but this bird sure knew how to mimic sounds. In fact, that’s what Senegals are known for. He possessed a range, a whole encyclopedia of noises. He could make the sound of hairspray being sprayed, a squeak of a closet door opening and shutting, a jangly hanger sound, the shuffle of feet going into loafers, a phone ringing, the swishy sound of teeth getting brushed, the screech of chairs against a hardwood floor. Turns out imitating those sounds is what Senegals are known for.

The coolest thing about Motek was, he knew Mimi’s daily routine so well, he signaled what was coming a split second before she made her move. For instance, just before Mimi zipped up her boots, he let out that zip-zip sound. He did the spray sound a second before her finger pressed on the nozzle, and as she walked toward the closet, the door was already squeaking in welcome.

He was like a prophet, that bird, because he always knew her next move. If she walked to the door in a certain determined way, he’d chirp “Bye Bye.” Amazingly, he could even anticipate a joke, squawking “heh heh heh” before the joke teller reached the punchline. Mimi delighted in how Motek — also called Mookie — seemed to be narrating her life as she lived it. She adored that bird.

Mimi kept Motek far from the apartment’s action — the kitchen and living/dining room but even tucked away in Mimi’s bedroom, boy that bird could hear — even with the door closed! As we prepared and ate supper, Mookie would emit the clicking sound of a microwave opening, the suctiony gasp of a fridge door closing, chewing sounds, the clink of utensils and the clatter of plates.

I loved how Motek made me conscious of sound, the little rumblings I formerly would have dismissed as white noise. He was like one of the mynah birds from Aldous Huxley’s last work, “Island,” a fictional island where the pink mynah birds incessantly chirp, “Attention!” and “Here and now,” thus reminding the inhabitants to attune themselves to the moment. Mindfulness birds, you could call them. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say Motek infused my day with a bit more consciousness.

Before you snort in disbelief, just know there are many lessons we can glean from birds, and in fact from the whole animal kingdom. Ever see hundreds of ants band together to lift a single cheerio or thousands cluster and form an ant raft in the midst of a flood? They’re showing us humans how to overcome obstacles we can’t overcome on our own, through working together. They also have two stomachs. One for the food they eat, and the other stomach to give food to all the ants back at the colony busy minding the fort and raising the young. It’s as if sharing is built into their very bodies.

But I’m getting sidetracked. It’s birds that interest me, or really, Motek.

He had a sly sense of humor. Sometimes, for the fun of it, he’d imitate the ring of my phone in the pre-cell phone days, and I’d leap to get it, banging my shin, only to look up and see Mookie giving me his Fooled ya! smirk. Ah Motek. I rubbed my bruised shin and of course forgave him. He was just too charming to be mad at.

There was another extraordinary aspect to Motek. That bird sure knew how to pick up on my cues whenever I wanted to get off the phone. Just before I was about to sign off, he’d chirp “Bye Bye,” loud enough for the listener on the other end to hear.

Sometimes it got embarrassing. I’d be speaking with Someone Important on the phone, wondering when the conversation would end, when suddenly the caller heard a squeaky “Bye Bye” in the background. Which made me sound plain rude.

But never mind that. How did Motek realize what was coming? What made him figure out I was getting antsy or simply needed to get off the phone? Did my voice get higher, lower, faster, more crisp or distant sounding? Did I get up and pace? Cough? Sigh? Fiddle with a pencil?

Apparently, I was giving off winding-down signals, and Motek, whose perch was seven feet away from my bedroom, had heard me talk on the phone so often, my cues entered his bloodstream. In a certain pre-verbal way, he knew me better than me, sensed when I was feeling bored or anxious. Get off the phone already! No bird brain, this Motek.

And I thought: How many phone conversations have I had, when the person on the other end wanted to get off the phone, but I failed to pick up on their cues? But now there was a chance to repair. Motek motivated me to pay attention to other people’s winding-down signs — the throat clearings, shuffling sounds, the constant refrain of “uh huh” or “well…” that signaled it was time to say “Bye Bye” and put down the phone. Motek also helped me come up with a new definition of a bore: someone who talks on the phone when the other person wants to get off. That simple.

From Motek I also learned that quiet people, the non-talkers, might seem uncommunicative, but in fact, they are communicating all the time, if only I could learn to decipher their signals.

What happened to Motek in the end? What happened is, I got married and left the apartment. I didn’t entirely forget the Senegal, though. (Or Mimi. We’re still in touch.) Whenever I went back and visited, I checked in on Mookie, and there he was chirping away, still predicting Mimi’s next move, and Mimi smiling adoringly at his clever antics.

Then Mimi got married, and Motek acquired an additional owner: the Husband. The two got along swimmingly. From Mookie’s perch in the bedroom he sang along with Friday night Kiddush and Saturday night Havdalla, though blessings were beyond him — too quietly uttered.

Then came the day the happy trio — Mookie, Mimi and Husband — were joined by a fourth. Mimi had a baby! But it was the beginning of the end. Motek couldn’t stand all that love and attention Mimi lavished on her infant son. He sulked and brooded. One day Mimi was walking around the apartment, the bird perched on her shoulder, when she felt a painful sharp scratch at her neck. She stared at Motek in shock. Her beloved bird had bitten her? In all their years together, he’d never once done that.

But it made sense, now that she thought about it. Way back when she first bought Motek, the pet store owner warned her, “These birds get real jealous of babies.” I guess if Motek couldn’t have all of Mimi’s attention, he wanted none of it, and so he withdrew to his cage, refusing all attempts to come out and play. The look of mischief in his yellow eyes dulled. His pretty feathers drooped. He was hurting. I never knew a parrot could get depressed or jealous. I wouldn’t have believed it possible for a bird, or for that matter any animal. But Motek taught me a lot of things.

Mimi had no choice but to give him away for the well-being of the family, and Mookie too. But changing a Senegal’s habitat is no simple thing. It’s called re-homing. Many parrots experience the move as trauma, I kid you not. They’re grieving for their former home and owner, unlike dogs who rebound fairly quickly. By a stroke of luck — or was it bird karma? — a repair man in her house volunteered to take Mookie to his home, where he kept a number of Senegal parrots. Mookie adjusted beautifully, and even acquired for himself a mate and eventually a baby bird.

By the way, the phone skills I gleaned from Mookie became obsolete with the advent of fax, then email, then texting, as phone calls plummeted within a span of ten or twenty years. Luckily the skill of tuning in to others and picking up their cues is transferrable. Here’s a tip. If you’re talking to someone and you notice the person’s hand keeps raising or lifting slightly, it means she’s trying to get a word in edgewise.

You’re welcome.