I heard this very factual-sounding fact, some years ago, and to be honest I have never actually researched it to find out if there is any scientific merit to it, but here it is:  I have believed it to be true, for many years now, that when tropical or exotic birds are removed from their tropical or exotic homes and shipped to less-than tropical or exotic climes for re-selling in pet stores or re-stocking Zoos and atriums, there is a significant consideration required for their transport.  Should their temporary cages and crates carry them off via container ship, train or transit truck, all is well.  But should their re-homing require air travel, well, Houston, we have a problem.  Despite the fact that they can fly with great agility in their native jungles and forests, even if those habitats are at great altitude in mountainous regions, the internal altimeter of a song bird participating in the realities of human-made flight cannot handle the truth.  Within its feathered ribcage rapidly beats a heart sending one message in staccato chirps: “You should not be way up here, my dear little bird.  Dive back down, soar quickly back the way you came, back to where you belong.  You cannot be here.”  And I understand that if those little birds cannot stand the stress of being where they don’t belong, they die, because they didn’t listen to their heart.

Now… I need this to be true (if sad, but then again, I’m really not too much into the whole capturing animals from the wild to be pets or on display, so, let’s not have a PETA parade today, gentle reader, this is about the metaphor. Here it comes.)  Now (again)….. what if you are that little bird?  What if you flying where you oughtn’t? But short of breaking out of your cage and pecking your way through the fuselage, what if you are trapped in that reality?

There it is, kids, there is the whole parakeet-enchilada. It sounds GREAT to say that life is all about choices, and certainly WHEN we humans have a choice, it’s WAY better to make a “good” choice than a “bad” one. But we are fooling ourselves if we think we always have a choice. Oh, and yes, you dark existentialists will be mopily shaking your heads at me and reminding me that there is always, always at least one choice. I talking about the freedom to make any choice at all, versus having confines around your choices.

So, embrace your inner Macaw for a sec, and imagine your birdy little heart is telling you that you are in the wrong place.  We now enter the first layer of choice. The advantage we have is intellect and instinct, and we can allow one or the other to inform our choice.  What if you are at the wrong altitude? You might like the view and the fragrance of the air, but your heart isn’t beating right. It knows you are not where you belong. It’s easy to say “Well, my little chickadee, go back where you belong”. Oh…but dear reader… what if you can’t?  What if that part of your jungle home no longer exists? Or if you should find a way back, and discover all that you knew, all that was familiar from the vantage point of your nest has gone… what then, my airborne amour, what then?

One day, this is years ago now, I was outside with my class when suddenly a snowy white cockatoo (not native to this schoolyard, not even close) fluttered down from above and lit on the shoulder of one of my students.  To my knowledge, neither the bird nor girl knew each other prior to this moment, and the end of that story was in the kind intervention of neighbour who took guardianship of the escaped-pet and returned it home.

Well… to its ersatz home, its home far from its birthplace in the rainforest. The bird knew it was not where it truly belonged, went out in search of what its heart ached for, only to realize it was, after all, in the right place. Not where it thought it wanted to be, but instead where it needed to be.

Home is, after all, where your heart finds its ease, despite the pain of the journey.