A Hint of Magic

 "Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder." ~E.B.White

A while ago I made a wedding cake for a very special girl. While the wedding took place at the church, I was busy at the reception hall layering and decorating the cake. When I was through, I took a deep breath and realized that at any moment the hoard of wedding guests would arrive. I am not a confident person and that comes out very flagrantly in the fact that I can hardly stand to be surrounded by a crowd. I started to get panicked. Not the wedding cake kind of panic, that was already over. The people panic. I went straight out the back and down by the little lake to calm myself.

It was in making my escape that I saw it. Lying there on the ground where I was about to step- a tattered pink paper that read "ticket". I instinctively bent to pick it up and just before my fingers grasped it a million thoughts went through my head at lightening speed.


"What if it was the kind of magic ticket that if you touch it you are instantly whisked away to another land?" I would never want to leave my boys; what if I  couldn't get back? "What if it's a ticket that grants a wish, but you have to know what you want at that instant?" What would I wish for,  and, (fairytales are so full of the pitfalls of bad wishes) what if I wished wrong? "What if to touch it gives you a magic ability and you don't even realize till later?" What if it's something terrible, like being able to hear dead people? 

All this passed through my mind in literally an instant, as I hesitated to touch it. Then I smiled and picked it up and put it in my pocket. Laugh if you will, every single thought was completely real to me. Why? Because I believe in magic and all its possibilities. 

I remember being in 6th grade and my moma pleading with me to say that I didn't really believe in unicorns and fairies, that I didn't believe in magic. This was the time period when Dungeons and Dragons was so prevalent, though I was too young to even know about it. Teens were convincing themselves they were magical and leaping off buildings and such to prove it. Let's say they didn't fly. I was so sad not to not be able to say it. But I had to tell her no, that I couldn't. "If you say you don't believe in them, you will never see them, " I tried to explain. I didn't even go into the whole Peter Pan quote of how when you say you don't believe in fairies that one falls down dead. We were both crying by then and it would have been too much.

"Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable." ~Mary Oliver

So ask me now, at 44 years of age. Do I believe in magic? Yes, I do. I am not some sort of wild fanatic. I've seen shows with people who believe they are fairies. Or who file their teeth and believe they are vampires. There was a man in my boys' 2001 Guinness World Record book for most tattoos, that was covered all over (ALL over) with leopard spots. I later read that he said he ran naked over his land killing rabbits and eating them raw. Because he was a cat, of course. So, no, I don't think I'm a fairy or wizard. I just know that magic is real.

"There are only two ways to live you life- one is as if nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." ~Albert Einstein

My very first clue is in the Bible. And God spoke and it was so. He spoke and there was an ocean; He spoke and there was a mountain. One dictionary definition of magic is this: the power of apparently influencing the course of events by using mysterious or supernatural forces. Here's another: the use of special powers to make things happen that would usually be impossible. For me, that says it all. Every wonder, all awe, everything inexplicable, everything unimaginable is a product of magic. And I mean that in a reverent, heavenly sense.

I mean, think of it this way, God in his infinite creativity made all things. Do you find him a cold, dried-up old man, living up in the clouds? He is a Father with an amazing sense of wonder and humor. Just look around you. He created the duck-billed platypus. This is a creature that when first brought back to science, was debunked as a crude joke of taxidermied mishmash. He created me, Dear Reader, and I am sure he got a good laugh out of that! (God talking to an angel, "Yeah, when I made that one I didn't just break the mold, I stomped on it, just to be sure!";)

"We live on a blue planet that circles a ball of fire next to a moon that moves the sea, and you don't believe in miracles?" ~Anon.

The ocean is filled with unfathomable creatures that we are constantly discovering, so long after humans said space was the final frontier because there was nothing here left to explore. Prehistoric Behemoths from the deep wash up to stun man's eyes and challenge the thought that we know all about the world we claim dominion over. I can just imagine God listening to some droning scientist talking about a creature being extinct for millions of years. That's when He grins, rubs His hands, and 'pop' one shows up in a fisherman's net.

 Every time I read something new about an animal I thought I knew all about, it feels like a bit of magic shining in a world we make drab and commonplace. The white egrets that stand in our ordinary Arkansas fields in summer, fly from the sweltering depths of Africa, where they walk among rhinos and drink alongside hippos. There are tiny little birds called swifts that can remain in the air without touching down for ten months. Wombats poop cubes. Okay, I threw that one in for free, but it's true! I prefer to live as if everything is a miracle. Really, isn't it?

"Above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it." ~Roald Dahl 
 The most beautiful magic I know is this- life growing in a mother's womb. I have carried and birthed three children and still I can sit in rapture thinking of the great miracle that grew unseen inside me. In my biology class I show pictures of animals in the womb: baby sharks with glaring eyes, elephants so wrinkled they look like they need pressing, clusters of puppies hanging like grapes in their mother's stomach. Did you know that all creatures the have live birth have belly buttons? If you look at a puppy or kitten that is young enough, you will see it. We have raised many possums that were tiny enough to have the little pink circle that looks like a suction-cup mark. How is that not a miracle? How is that not a little bit of magic?
  
I was leaving Wal-mart after a perfectly mundane grocery shopping trip. There was something on the ground in the parking lot. I saw a picture and held my breath as I picked it up. It seems I have been granted the ability to use a spell that controls a Hippocamp (half-horse/ half-fish, from mythology). That would come in mighty handy if I do happen to pick up a ticket that whisks me to a far off land.

The bottom warns me not to try to ride my Hippocamp unless I have gills. I'll bear that in mind... In the meantime, keep your eyes open. Magic, it's everywhere.