There is no magic?

Writing Club Exercise #1

May 13, 2014

Writing Prompt: What is it that you will never forget about this age and why have adults forgotten it?

When you are a toddler, the world is an amazing jungle gym full of cause and effect, science and magic are the same miraculous thing.  I remember the moment for about five seconds I thought my mom could do magic.  She sat my brother and I outside on a hot summer day on the front lawn.  In her hands she had the plainest tea towel ever, a marble and a green Tupperware bowl.  We watched in amazement as she plopped the marble in the bowl, covered it with the tea towel and waved her hand.  To our amazement, when she removed the tea towel, the marble was gone.  It was a moment of pure wonder.  For a moment, magic was real.  My mom had done something incredible. 

And then I realized as I played the moment over in my head that she had tilted the bowl, rolling the marble into her hand as she lifted the tea towel off.  The memory is one of my favourites and yet one of disappointment.

I think deep down inside we all want magic to be real.  The day our world expands and we lose our innocence, our naivety, is a grim one.  Suddenly the world has lost some of its beauty.  The happily-ever-after world of the princess belongs to rich girls and the frogs are just slimy green amphibians, not princes under a spell.  If you kiss them, you get no more than pond scum lip balm.  There is no fairy godmother that is ready to grant us our wishes or make our lives pretty.  Imagination becomes a bitter tasting pill no more than a placebo.  The world is neither good nor fair.  Some are born poor and others rich and its not their punishment or reward.  It simply is.  God grant us the grace to accept the things we cannot change.

We, as adults, forget the beauty of the simple belief.  We want an explanation.  We need science to tell us the hows and the whys instead of just enjoying the spectacle, the magic show, and letting the mind soar to places that reality cannot go.  Creativity is a gift that enriches perception in life.  As adults, we place more value on rational thought.  Maybe we are too busy running on the treadmill of life to let our imaginations soar.  A little escapism is healthy, for the world can weight a body down with overwhelming demands. 

I feel as though I missed out on the joy that simple child like acceptance brings.  The magic died out young for me.  I was one of those kids who reasoned that Santa wasn’t real when I was three because there was no way that he could get around the world so quickly let alone get down our stove pipe.  It might have helped had we had a chimney that a fat man could shimmy down.  I realized I was getting whatever mom and dad could afford to give under the Christmas tree.  There would never be a pony waiting for me no matter how good I was, but that didn’t mean they didn’t love me.  Thankfully happiness doesn’t come from stuff.

But then I wonder….maybe, just maybe, the magic isn’t gone.  I love me a good fantasy novel.  (As long as the universe formed is consistent with itself.)