Magpies

The sky is sharp, clear and so blue this morning. A blazing sun background is rising higher over the low hills beyond the field infront of my garden. I look up and see airplanes going about their daily business like determined lines of ants, leaving traces through the infinite blue, cutting across the atsmosphere, designing, darting thin lines that expand in to fatter, smoky mystic versions of themselves before slowly dissolving in the sunlight. The outer barrios of the city of Barcelona sit in the near distance, left of the hills, before the sea.

I love breakfast time here on my terrace, steadily coming around to the day, letting my senses run free like horses in the wild, watching my cats as they lazily contemplate patrolling and playing in the garden before us. This is 'my time', usually reserved for weekend mornings, but now for every day, as I lost my job this summer. Yet this fantastic sunny blue that heralds the end of a hot summer, is still keeping the season there for now. Maybe it is a silver lining contradiction of the dark clouds that have drifted over my way this summer, just when our personal skies should be at their brightest. Still, there is nothing more than this daily scene that I appreciate at this moment in time.

I remember reading an article last year, an interview with the author Chuck Palanuik, when he quoted Brad Pitt: "The real blessing of failure is that it is the only thing that gives you the isolation and time to reinvent yourself. If you are moving from success to success, you don't have that daydreaming period that will allow you to come up with something new and unique." I noted it down back then and realised its value much more now. Even though saying that, I think I have always realised, I have always tried taking steps back to get more in the frame and see the bigger picture. Maybe I hadn't realised that I have realised, or had  realised, if you know what I mean...Danger-of-confusing-reader-alert...stop Andrew...

I finish my breakfast and get up to lean on the terrace wall to look in to the field beyond the garden. Daydreaming a little, also contemplating on pondering around the garden with my furry gang. Some days we are lucky to see a large family of wild boars that roam down from the hills on the sniff for food, that sometimes cross our street to go up in to the wooded field and the hill on the other side of our suburb road. But lately I have noticed a small flock of Magpies, maybe five or six of them. Sitting on the wall too, now my cats are focused.

I watch with my pack as they hop around in the bushes or on the grassy lows, jumping in to branches or swooping up and down and around them, darting, hopping some more, wandering and calling to each other. A moment of play. I see them every few days doing the same thing and see swallows sitting on surrounding tree branches and the garden fence watching them too from a distance, as if they are intrigued more than I am at how playful they are, as if they have an element of envy, asking themselves if they could do that too or maybe even join in.

I have the sudden need to Wikipedia 'Magpies'. I have the Wikipedia urge quite frequently to be honest, I get my info booster shot on a regular basis. With graduating from university in my late-thirties, in the last decade I also realise I have an insatiable appetite to learn more than ever - why the f**k wasn't I like this at school? To learn in everything; in a job, in my relationship, even more about my friends after all these years, in my chosen sport of Hockey when most players my age are hanging up their sticks, if not already. Bruce Lee was not wrong when he said: "Life itself is your teacher and you are in a constant state of learning". The exam is always after the lesson unfortunately, c'est la vie. I suppose you have to live a little first so you can live a lot afterwards.

Their callings are increasingly charming. Their playtime is invigorating, I join the sparrows in their questions. How is it that the first thing we think of when talking about Magpies is how they like to steal things. Maybe we should say first about how much they play. Perhaps in the other moments I don't see them they are being stereotypical and on the swag. A little more thought usually helps us in some many things if we consciously dedicate a little more time to it. Whatever it is, they are 'stealing' my time and they are most welcome to it.

Put in black and white like the magpies, if stealing is negative and playing is positive, then surely there is a no-brainer as to where we should concentrate our time. We have to accept that we might lose some shiny objects at some point along the way in our life journeys, but I am really trying not dedicating my time and thoughts to it.

Rufy, my boss cat, slides up and slumps down on the wall next to me.

Me: "So Rufy, what are we gonna do today?"
Rufy: "Dude, it's Sunday, let's just chill."