The magpie
A true story
Wednesday 28th April 2021. The emotional turbulence continues, along with utter fatigue. On Sunday morning I was brewing on it all, and I heard a tap at the window. It was a magpie, trying to get in. It tried both windows — and the curtains were drawn on one of them.
The emotional turbulence stemmed from a few things. In the previous year our small business had boomed. It reached the point where my partner and I couldn’t cope any more, and we had come to the decision that we needed to find a new home for it. We were both physically and emotionally exhausted. Two weeks previously I had contacted a person who might be in a position to help us find a buyer.
Sunday 2nd May 2021. The magpie came back one morning last week, again after I had had a good night and was able to remember who I am and what is with me. I went to open the window and it flew off.
I had launched the business in 2001, from our front room. We imported bronze garden tools from Austria, where they were made at the time, and promoted them in the UK through our website, at shows and via a few resellers. The business had been a large part of my life for 20 years. I loved it.
Sunday 16th May 2021. I didn’t explain about the magpie. One morning about a month ago I was in a mess and managed to elevate out of it enough to get a sense of something - wonderful, outside of me. Just a little. Then I heard a scraping at the window. I looked, and it was a magpie balancing on the windowsill. I could see the dark colours and big, curved beak. It came round to the other window, where the curtains were drawn.
The second time I wrote about in the last entry. It came three more times, always when I had managed to pull myself up.
At that point we were both so exhausted that we agreed to close the business for three weeks, from Friday 21st May. As it was normally the busiest time of the year for us, when so many gardeners go outside, look into the shed and review the state of their garden tools, this was a desperate measure. However, we had run out. We simply had nothing left.
Tuesday 18th May 2021. The magpie came again yesterday morning. I hadn’t closed the curtains on the side window and it balanced on the windowsill there, fluttering to stay upright. When I saw it, it went.
The tools were imported from Austria. The administration of importing had been easy when the UK was a member of the EU, but that changed in January 2021. January had been the most stressful month of all in that respect. Nobody seemed to know how it was going to work and what needed to be done. The stress was still there in May.
Wednesday 19th May 2021. The magpie came again this morning. Each time I hear the fluttering and scuffling against the window. I look at it, and it goes.
Friday 21st May 2021. I was looking at the window when the magpie came. It landed on the windowsill, tapped once on the glass with its beak, turned back sideways-on, and flew off.
Then we closed the business and started the three weeks off. The first day I stayed in bed until mid-afternoon, got up for a while then went back to bed early. My body ached. I started to worry that I had seriously overdone it. It was clear that recovery was going to take a while.
Thursday 27th May 2021. The magpie came and tapped on the window. I looked at him, he cawed and flew off.
Although we had put up a ‘closed’ sign, the website was still there and the orders kept coming. After a week’s break I went back to work, to try to reduce some of the backlog. At the same time, the search for a new home for the business didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. A meeting to discuss it was cancelled. During those three weeks we were too tired even to go away on holiday.
Monday 7th June 2021. The magpie came on Friday morning, after a difficult night, and yesterday morning. Yesterday it was only for a moment.
The following week a possible buyer for the business came forward. We had a zoom conversation with their representative. This was only at the stage of exploring possibilities. More information was asked for, and a future meeting arranged.
Sunday 13th June 2021. The magpie came this morning and tapped on the window with his beak. Then he stayed for a few moments and looked in.
We went back to work the following day, and had to hit the ground running. For the first time in 20 years, there was a permanent backlog of orders.
Wednesday 16th June 2021. The magpie came this morning. A tap, a flap and a caw.
As the business now had a possible buyer, I had to face the prospect of it not being a part of my life any more. It was like the loneliness of letting a child go when it is time for them to leave home (or so I imagined, as I had not been through that particular experience).
Thursday 1st July 2021. The magpie came again this morning and deliberately tapped on the window and looked in. When I raised my head and looked back, he flew off. That was the first time in weeks.
Although the discussions with the potential buyer seemed to be going nowhere, I was beginning to see glimpses of how life-after-the-business might be. Just as we had put out feelers for its new home, I could feel lives in me contemplating possible futures.
Saturday 10th July 2021. The magpie came this morning. He tapped on the window, hopped on to the sloping roof, then as I sat up in bed and watched he walked across the roof, keeping an eye on me, then jumped off by the drainpipe.
We had a phone call to say that my partner’s mother was dying. He was her only close living relative. No progress with the relocation of the business.
Sunday 18th July 2021. The magpie came back on Friday, but not right to the window. He stood on the guttering and looked down and in.
That was the last time I saw him.
In mid-August, after three months of uncertainty, a date was agreed for the handover of the business: January 2022. The problems didn’t end there, though. At various points that autumn it looked as if it was all going to fall through. The fact that it didn’t is largely due to the relentless determination, persistence and perseverance of the buyer’s representative. He was unstoppable. Eventually, on Monday 31st January 2022 we took the last of the stock to the business’s new home.
We then slept — and slept.
It was only afterwards that it occurred to me how strange it was to receive those visitations from the magpie. I don’t know if it was coincidence, but at a time when I felt pushed to my limit, I found such comfort in those moments when he tapped at the window and looked at me. What was he (or she, or maybe they) responding to? Nothing like it has happened to me before or since.
I am just left with the mystery - and gratitude. Who knows what webs of connection exist between us humans and the other tribes of this planet.
