Two Magpies, One Unhinged Disney Princess

Not a Princess. Something More Powerful.

Let’s get one thing straight before we go any further. I am forty-three years old. I am divorced. My eyebrows are sharper than any winged liner you perfected in your twenties while squinting into a bathroom mirror under a single globe that flickered ominously. I am not, and I cannot stress this enough, a Disney princess. Princesses are sweet and passive and they wait for things to happen to them. I do not wait. I am chaos with eyebrows.

What I am, apparently, is a Disney goddess. The kind who does not need a prince or a castle or an enchanted forest. She just needs a balcony, a rainy afternoon, and absolutely no sense of self-preservation. Because a few months ago, a magpie landed on my balcony railing mid-downpour, absolutely drenched and unbothered by me, and instead of thinking oh, that’s lovely, I thought: what does it eat, and do I have any?

That was the beginning. That is always how it begins.

Two Birds, One Chaotic Woman

The magpie who came in from the rain became a regular. Then he brought a friend. Now there are two of them, a bonded pair, living in the tree directly opposite my flat like they pay rent there. One has a slightly lopsided beak, a permanent squint, and an air of someone who has survived a great deal and would like you to know it. His name is Squinty. The other one stood on one leg the first time I really looked at her and so naturally, obviously, her name is Hoppy. I didn’t agonise over these names. The names arrived. You don’t choose magpie names. Magpie names choose you.

I Googled obsessively before I put anything out, because I am chaotic but I am not irresponsible. Grain-free cat food, protein-forward, balanced for a carnivore. No bread. No mince. Not because I don’t love them, but because I love them enough to read fourteen wildlife forum threads at eleven o’clock on a Tuesday. Lulu watched me do the research from his spot on the bench, radiating the particular disdain he reserves for anything that isn’t directly about him.

The first time I held food out in my open palm and Squinty stepped forward and took it, something genuinely shifted in my chest. Not in a soft, weepy way. In an I have power way. A bird that could take out your eye on a bad day chose to eat out of my hand. Tell me that is not the energy we should all be cultivating.

Murder Birds Have Standards

Here is a thing about magpies that maybe only Aussies know. They are deeply particular. They have opinions. They are not grateful in the performative way we’ve decided animals are supposed to be grateful. They assess. They evaluate. They make decisions, and those decisions are sometimes baffling, and you simply have to respect them.

Squinty and Hoppy are most confident when I’m wearing black. They’re not wrong. I agree i look better in black too. But they’ll still come regardless of what I’m wearing, because at some point we moved past aesthetics into something more fundamental. They know me now. They know the sound of my voice. They know the particular rustle of the cat food container. Squinty lands first, always. Hoppy holds back, watching, until the situation has been assessed and cleared. It’s a whole system.

What gets me every single time is the singing. They don’t just show up and stare at me expectantly like Lulu does when it’s past five o’clock and he’s decided I’ve forgotten about him despite the fact that I haven’t. They sing. Perched on my balcony rail, they warble at me, this full, ridiculous, gorgeous sound rolling through the humidity and I am supposed to act normal about this? I am supposed to just go about my morning while two murder birds are serenading my balcony? Impossible. Absolutely impossible.

What You Learn from an Animal That Could Hurt You

There is a particular kind of trust that you earn from a creature that has every reason not to give it to you. Magpies are not soft. They are not designed for affection. They are designed for survival and they are very good at it. They swoop people. They have an entire season named after them as a warning. Most sensible Australians approach magpie season the way you approach a work email that starts with as per my last message. Carefully. From a distance. With a helmet if available.

And yet. Here is Squinty, lopsided beak and all, taking food from my hand with a precision that is honestly more controlled than the way I eat in front of my laptop. Here is Hoppy, watching me with one bright eye, tilting her head like she’s deciding something important. There is nothing quite like being chosen by something that had every option to choose fear instead. It makes you feel, briefly, like you’ve done something right. Not in a self-congratulatory way. Just in a quiet, solid way.

Nobody warned me that the most unexpectedly moving part of this whole situation would be the returning. Not the first time, not the novelty of it, but the fact that they come back. Every morning. Because they’ve decided I’m reliable. Me. A woman who loses the plot more days than she cares to admit, has gone hypoglycaemic at one in the afternoon because she was so fixated on a task she forgot to eat, and cries regularly over cute TikToks. Squinty and Hoppy have assessed the available evidence and concluded: yes, her. She’s the one. And I don’t know what to do with that except show up with the cat food* and try not to make it weird.

*I did try to replace the cat food with mealworms at one pint. Squinty was happy to test the new goods, decided absolutely not, and now that’s fifteen dollars I’m never getting back.

You Don’t Need an Enchanted Forest

If you’ve been waiting for your own magical woodland creature moment, I have news. It doesn’t happen in a sunlit meadow while you twirl in a gown. It happens on a rainy Saturday in a Brisbane flat while you’re still in your pyjamas, Googling can magpies eat grain-free cat food with the intensity of someone defending a thesis. Glamorous? No. Correct? Absolutely.

You do not need perfect conditions to build something meaningful. You need to show up consistently, offer something real, and not take it personally when the vibe isn’t there every day. Hoppy didn’t eat out of my hand straight away. She watched for weeks. I kept coming back anyway. And one day she just… did. She stepped forward and took the food and I tried very hard not to make a sound that would startle her, and inside I was completely unhinged with joy.

That’s the thing about choosing to care for something outside yourself, especially something that doesn’t need you to, especially something with a beak that could genuinely rearrange your face. You don’t get a certificate. You don’t get applause. You get Squinty warbling at your balcony door at seven in the morning because he has decided you are part of his world now, and the sun is out, and it is time. That is better than a certificate. That is the whole point.

You Are Not Entitled to an Answer – Chaos, Crumbs and Clarity

In this episode of Chaos, Crumbs and Clarity, we're unpacking why you are not entitled to an answer. Specifically, we're talking about the strange little corner of modern dating where a few days of app chat somehow becomes an emotional contract, and suddenly a man you've never met believes your silence requires a formal explanation, a debrief, and possibly a follow-up meeting with management.I have two stories for you. One man who talked almost exclusively about himself, ignored the fact that I was sick, and then followed up a week later asking whether I'd reconsidered his "request for clarification". And another who became offended because I didn't respond to his selfie within two hours while I was lying in a dark room with a migraine. Sir. Please be serious.Because here's the thing. Before you've met someone, you do not owe them unlimited access to your time, attention, reassurance, or emotional labour. You don't have to justify why the vibes changed. You don't need a reason they'll consider reasonable. You are allowed to disengage because something felt off, because you changed your mind, because you met someone else, or because you're in your luteal phase and frankly the entire world can wait.Today we're talking about the difference between ghosting and simply disengaging, why demanding closure can become a boundary violation, the exhausting expectation that women should manage men's feelings for them, and why you do not need to JADE, justify, argue, defend, or explain, when you've already decided you're done. Let's get into it.Key Takeaways:A few days of chatting does not create a debt. Matching on an app, exchanging messages, or talking on the phone does not give someone a claim on your attention. Until you've actually built a connection, you are allowed to walk away without submitting supporting documentation.Closure is not something another person can demand from you. Asking once is one thing. Continuing to push after someone has clearly disengaged is not persistence or emotional maturity. It's refusing to accept the answer you've already been given.You do not need to JADE. You don't have to justify, argue, defend, or explain why you're no longer interested. The reason doesn't have to be good enough for him. It just has to be yours.Pre-date silence and post-date silence are not the same thing. If you've never met, disengaging is part of app dating. Once you've shared an actual date or developed a genuine connection, a simple goodbye becomes basic courtesy. Nobody needs a dissertation, but acknowledging another human being matters.Sometimes they don't miss you. They miss the audience. Someone can seem interested while actually being interested in having your attention. Real connection requires curiosity about you. If the only time they become deeply engaged is when you're leaving, pay attention to that.For more visit ⁠BryJaimea.com⁠ or follow over on IG ⁠@BryJaimea

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