Birds

My mother owned birds. She owned cockatiels, a Quaker parrot, and finches. Oh, and a lovebird.

She took care of them about as badly as she took care of everything else in her life. Including herself.

A few weeks ago, I had a horrific (to me) nightmare. In it, I was trapped in a room with no door. In this room were dozens of bird cages that hadn't been cleaned, filled with dead & dying birds that hadn't been fed or watered in a long time. The ones that were alive were eating their fellows to survive. There was no door or window in this room, just myself, and dozens of overfull bird cages with abused birds in it. One that struck me hard, and stayed in my mind vividly, was a nesting pair of cockatiels. The female was lying of the eggs, dead. The male was on his last legs, and was sitting on a nearby perch, saying back and forth, ready to topple over.

It was a horrible dream.

Last night, I dreamed of the birds again, but this was different. This time, there was a door. I carried each cage out of the room, out of the house, and opened it and freed the birds. They flew off to find food and water on their own. Somehow, I knew that all of them would be able to survive the winter, and would be strong enough to survive. Then, one by one, I threw the dirty cages and the dead birds into the garbage.

Then I walked away from the house.

I don't know exactly what all this means, but it feels good.