The Magpie of Chance

by Lars Nordstrom

Pausing for a moment, teacup almost to my lips, I noticed a magpie darting into the road to gobble up some fortuitous tidbit of food. My heart skipped a beat as he dodged a dirty red Volvo still wearing the salt of countless winter roads. The driver never even slowed down, just charged along on his way, mindless of the near disaster for this beautiful bird (preoccupied maybe, with the stress of securing his own next meal). This magpie, though, was taking chances. I wondered just what it was that he was after... it looked to be a bit of a discarded croissant, soggy from the recent ice-melt. I suddenly remembered my tea and took a sip, glancing around at the other patrons in this odd little cafe, wondering if, perhaps, it was someone from this very establishment who had discarded the valuable piece of bread that meant a hearty meal for a bird. I doubt it was done out of kindness, but was rather just random chance. I savored my tea and started thinking about chances I'd taken in my own life, with sometimes no more thought for my own safety than the magpie on the curb, now happily devouring his trophy.

Chance. It's a remarkable thing to speculate about. The chances we've taken, random courses of action we've followed, versus the actual plans that we've made. I've never been much of a planner, and I think I've trusted myself to fate and happenstance more often than should really be comfortable. Yet, things always seemed to work themselves out that way--when I plan something, that's when everything can go seriously wrong. Sitting here in a Stockholm cafe, sipping tea and watching a magpie, is the ultimate proof of what can be achieved without any planning whatsoever. Well, that's not strictly true-- there was some planning involved, but not nearly as much as one might think. Our situation isn't all that unique either, but is still unusual enough to give me pause.

Just a year ago, I had been working myself toward an early grave, in a job I hated, with people I didn't like, over-extended financially, and too tired for anything but occasional bouts of desperate channel surfing. My wife, too, felt the constraints building on us, despite all our careful planning and efforts. It was getting harder to find some escape from this self-created hell, even with the help of mind-numbing television humor, complete with laugh tracks to cue us in on our feelings about the jokes being thrust our way. How did we end up in this trap? Was there no acceptable way out of this mess of a life? This situation is surely not what we had planned on for all those years. It wasn't how things were supposed to be. We had stopped taking chances. We couldn't afford to take chances anymore. We were too old for that; we had to be adults and plan things out like adults do. Make little diagrams and pie charts of income versus debt. Mortgage payments, car payments, taxes, health insurance, electric bills, gas bills, this bill and that bill.

Suddenly though, something happened. Something changed. We had had enough of that crazy lifestyle. We decided we would take a chance after all. As soon as an opportunity arose we knew we had to at least give it a whirl. We would try life in Europe again, this time together. So, we sold our house, packed our bags and here we are, happy, healthy and taking the chance of a lifetime. Some things are important enough to take a chance for: for some it's a bit of soggy croissant, for others it's the chance for a new beginning in a new world, living, like the magpie, on a wing and a prayer.

The Author

Lars Nordstrom lives in Stockholm with his wife Cecilia and their amazing cat Tigger. He has worked as everything from a Security Guard to a CNC Programmer, and this broad experience base has made him rather bitter about work in general. He much prefers to spend his time pretending to be a writer.

You can read more about him and his work at his website.