Winter magic

I told someone the other day -- and this is true -- that as a child, I didn't much like fairy tales, fantasy, anything about magic or make-believe. I was having enough trouble trying to figure out the realities around me. So stories about children going through the back of wardrobes and entering magical lands, or riding animals through the sky, or swinging on a swing high up above the trees into another dimension just didn't grab me then.

It's hitting me, at this most unreal time of an unreal year, that magic may be about the only thing left that I do believe in right now. I mean, I have been off the proverbial merry-go-round for decades. For the longest time, I kept thinking maybe one day I'd make my way back on, but it's pretty clear that if anything, the gap between me and it is only growing.

So "magic" may not only be a survival tool, it may be who I am on some level that I never understood; my extensive schooling and my desire to make logical sense of the chaotic world around me almost quashed the wonder-filled little girl, but not quite. In a month or so, I will "retire": from what? From walking around in circles trying to make my way backwards, not forwards. From ignoring my intuition. From trying to get back on the merry-go-round, rather than exploring a serendipity-filled path to the future. During this dark month or so, I'm starting anew, releasing myself into wonder: What if I could fly up to the stars? What if I could walk through a snowy woods and find a foreign land on the other side? What if reading one paragraph in one book could change my life? What if there are, indeed, millions of invisible potential realities to choose from at every fork in the road? What if, what if, what if? Wouldn't it be wonder-ful?!