Lest We Forget the Magic of It All

Sweet Briar College, October 2015

I’m a sucker for magical things. There is a part of me, the young child who still moves through the world in wonder, that I’ve never outgrown, the part that loves nothing more than the appearance of something which even for the merest moment baffles reason, defies explanation.

There is almost always an explanation. I’m not disappointed by that. In fact, there is another side of me, the science nerd side, that loves untangling the knot, deciphering the puzzle and discovering exactly how a seemingly impossible thing occurs.

The child me comes upon a multicolored leaf that floats in the air and thinks, “Hooray! Something magical is happening here!” The grownup me, looking for a rational explanation, gazes two stories up to locate the origin of the gossamer silk strong enough to hold a spinning Sweetgum leaf, and she thinks, “Hooray! Something wondrous is happening here!” The two — magic and reality — coexist alongside quite nicely, I think. One does not need to cancel out the other. (Sidebar: there are some really big spiders here.)

As I said, there is almost always an explanation. Still, there are those moments, aren’t there, when something seems to break through from the other side of The Veil? When logic abandons us at the doorstep of mystery? The prescient dream eerily showing you a future event that is realized. A chance meeting that seems beyond probability. Visitations from the dying as they leave this realm. You have your stories, I know. I do, too.

Obviously we can clearly see in the video how it is that the leaf “floats” in midair. Still, in that first split second I was reminded that many things remain beyond human understanding. That mystery permeates everything in creation. (Including us.)

These are stressful times. My concentration is sorely challenged. I don’t sleep well anymore. Storms rage. Lives have been upended and in too many cases lost. Our national discourse strains.

I am taking lots of breaks and walking outside. To look for a little bit of magic, I suppose. To put myself in a place for wonder to come find me and announce itself. The egret lifting up out of the reeds with a sharp cry, its wide, white wings stark against the turquoise sky. The mottled cat with impossibly soft fur winding around my bare leg and gazing up at me with dark, liquid eyes.

I believe wonder and hope are close cousins, both wide open to possibility, both available in small moments that fall as grace.

An hour later the leaf was gone. The electric moment of magic remains. I think I’ll try to hang onto it for a while.