This past Christmas I visited my extended family in Michigan. I’ve been going to Michigan for holiday’s for years and for the most part they have been the same thing with new adornments as family members age. This one was somehow different. I sensed my self being in a strange form of limbo. Being on the edge of one world but not quite in the next.
The first “world” I speak of is the world of Christmas magic. The place where Santa Clause brings you big gifts, and the only thing you really worry about is how big those gifts are and how many you get to open. it’s a world of sparkle and shine, or at least enough to blind you from what is going on beneath the layer of wrapping paper surrounding you. When I was a child I seemed to imprint the concept of magic with my Father, whether it be because we would always watch magic shows together or perhaps it’s also because of this memory. I remember one Christmas spent in Michigan, when I was very young. We were at my Aunt’s house and being a small child with no siblings I went to my Dad for entertainment, after all he was the magic man. I can’t remember quite perfectly how it happened but we were playing and I think I asked him to do a magic trick. So with my stuffed animal in hand he tells me to close my eyes, I trustingly do so. He says some magic trick words and I open my eyes; Gasp! My toy is on the other side of the room! At that place in time I saw magic, my father had managed to make my toy transport form one side of the room to the other! I asked him to do it over and over and over again. Each one of those times being just as magical as the first.
Just recently I was thinking about this memory, and it quickly occurred to me that maybe his magic trick wasn’t filled so much with magic but more the ability to toss a toy from one end of the room to another. I felt so stupid for believing in that. How could I have been so naïve! Even at that age I was a quick to get it kid, not a ton of things could wiz past me without my realizing what was going on. But through my frustrated thoughts a began to realize maybe I now wish I could be more naïve. I wish I could see magic in every day things. I have always seen knowledge as power, and when ever possible I garble it up like Mama’s home cooked meals after being away from home for too long. But I feel I’ve realized that maybe even if knowledge is power, who says I have to be all powerful? Besides, those in power I feel maybe don’t get so much time to themselves, or at least not enough to stop and smell the roses.
So for this new year, I hope to remember to be more of a kid and find magic in anything I can. It may be difficult for my over rationalizing, control freakish, need to know everything mind, but I can at least give it a try.
