flocking

I grew up with a parrot. Over the course of my life, we taught one another how to communicate our feelings to each other using sounds, patterns of movement, and gesture. Now I have this rich private language with my bird. This makes sense, after all, birds distinguish who is in their flock by the familiar sounds they call out and repeat back to one another over a given distance. Birds that know the same head bob and chirp must be from your zip code, and are therefore your familiars. Your family. Your flock. Without noticing, over time I began enacting some of the mannerisms I’ve developed between me and my bird, with my human friends. I think most write off these acts as quirkiness, or ‘Sarah being Sarah’, but as I repeat them, invariably those who are closest to me begin mimicking these behaviors as well. As my closest…