Reverence for the Common and Ordinary

The wild parrots came back to my yard this week! And I was able to capture their visit to share with you all here. See their splendor as they munch on persimmons in the video below:

I also spent some time this week listening to old episodes of Garrison Keillor’s “News from Lake Wobegon” from his radio show A Prairie Home Companion; say what you will about his folksy style, he does accurately capture what it’s like to live in a tiny Midwestern town. In an episode from May 22, 1982, Keillor says, “But, I feel as I get older, that nostalgia for things in the past is simply giving to them the reverence that they deserved at the time. That nostalgia is a way of looking at things with the reverence that you should have had at the time for all of these things that seemed so common and ordinary.”

While wild parrots are fairly common across Southern California, their visits remind me to hold reverence for what is ordinary in the present moment. Because it won’t always be this way. As my friend and mentor Jill Modes reminded me this week, life is sweet and precious because it is finite.