when you find the matching milk jug and sugar bowl to your vintage teapot, and you get in the car and you drive for 45 long minutes on the motorway, and then on other roads filled with potholes and rainwater, and you find the little cottage, and after you knock on the door, you are given your new treasure by Lucy whose granny used to drink her tea from this set, but will never need it again, and you say ‘I am so sorry’, and because things break as they do, all that was left are saucers, a milk jug and a sugar bowl, but you know this is enough, because you are a foreigner, an immigrant and you have lived in three countries, and on two continents, and in more than 25 different houses, and you know how to start over, and over, and over amen, and how to make your own roots, and after you pay her, you say ‘thank you’ and you tell her the story of your teapot and how you have searched for things to match it, but you can’t tell her all the stories about your teapot because they weigh too much and they make you cry sometimes, so instead you look her in the eyes, this other grandaughter of a grandmother, and you say, ‘these things that were once special to your granny will be treasured by me’ and you leave there holding the special thing of someone else’s granny and you know you have had a day full of serendipity, and you send a thank you into the sky to all the grannies who have little pieces of their lives now living under your roof, and not for the first time you are grateful that you are a magpie.
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