bellbird
MyPTSD Pro
Thank you for sharing, @Self-Determined . Reading your post was further encouragement to me to practice transferring that gentleness to myself also.your thoughts about how fragile they are had me thinking about how I can transfer that gentleness to myself.
Most recently I've been noticing how patient I am with Tweeter, and how that patience is a daily occurrence, not just a one-off event.
Like our routine in the morning when I give him fresh seed, and he jumps up on the side of the cage, which is signal that he's ready for me to hand-feed him any of the remaining pellets (his favourite dry food) left in yesterday's seed. I have a tremor, so getting a little pellet in front of a little beak can be a challenge sometimes, but he is so patient with me and so happy just to spend that time bonding with me, and so I practice turning that inward towards myself.
Another of our routines is when I pick a bunch of chickweed from my garden (his favourite fresh food). As soon as he sees me with it, he gets so excited. I'll tell him to "come down" and he'll fly down to the lowest perch in his cage. Pretty much the moment I get my hand through the cage door, he'll jump onto it. And then I'll help him to find all the seed heads in the chickweed, which are his favourite part. I point out the ones he can't see with my other hand, and he'll eat them.
My favourite moment with Tweeter, in recent times, was about a week ago when I was doing a yoga practice in my bedroom. His cage was at the back end of my yoga mat. At one point in the practice, I turned back over my shoulder to look at him. Only to find that he was sitting on his perch so that his chest was facing away from me, but his head was turned back to look at me too.
As I write this, we're both sitting in the lounge. Me on an arm chair. Tweeter on a perch in his cage. We have the windows open and music on. Tweeter is preening himself, which always soothes me. So lucky to have my little buddy to keep me company through this lockdown.