Several days ago, my friend and colleague Patty Jackson (WDAS fame) posted as her status on facebook “I believe in Magic!” I naively responded to her post: “Me toooooooo!!!!!” Thinking she was referring to that intangible idea of pixie dust and Harry Potter and what not . I had no Earthly idea she was actually referring to the basketball team from Orlando.
My mistake was innocent enough. I will probably lose fans and friends by saying that I have followed not one single basketball game since….oh God. I can’t even remember when. I didn’t even know Orlando was playing. Plus, they lost. Anyway… Safe to say, I am in no danger of being a baller’s wife and I am all but too cool with it.
I’m writing this post because, despite my chronic randomness, and even more chronic singleness, I’ve been pondering the idea of love, relationships and that indescribable gooey-ness we feel when we get around somebody special.
The idea that the sun, moon, stars and all of the planets aligned enough for two people out of the billions on this planet to make that kind of connection is nothing short of amazing.
Am I allowed to say out loud that I believe in magic? The real kind. (We’ve already established that I could care less about the Orlando kind.) Yes, I believe in pixie dust and Merlin the Magician AND that all of the stories in those Harry Potter books are somehow based on an alternative reality just short from our grasp. I do. (Seriously.)
With that very idea in mind, I believe in love at first sight. And destiny. And Soul mates. I believe that two people can literally meet and know they belong together within seconds, if not sooner. Of course, this concept may be the single most impractical take on love that has ever been spoken by a seemingly common sense driven person, but…okay. Even I have a few idiosyncrasies.
You know why I believe in magic? Because most of my life my father has told me that every relationship, at any time, is about two sentences from being over. I think his exact words were “two words” (not sentences)–but I thought that a bit mellow dramatic. Meanwhile, the divorce rate in our country will probably prove him correct. What that means is, on any given day, at any given time, no matter how long two people have been together– if one or both people in a seemingly happy union, utters the wrong two sentences to each other—game over. That is literally like betting against a time bomb. Consequently, my parents have been married for 36 years. I guess they just haven’t found the right combination of words yet.
So now I’m thinking, there has to be something, a glue of sorts, that sticks people together through the mundane everydayness of life, turmoil and the trials that tend to be reoccurring themes in loving relationships. There must be something that keeps people together when everything in our selfish nature aims to rip us apart. I’m positive it has to be nothing short of a miracle. Magic even. Or a really big dowry.
Dowry aside, we often laugh at those (sometimes annoying) people who are newly in love and we say things like: ”wait till the honeymoon phase is over”. What we’re really saying is, wait till the reality of your everyday sets in and the magic wears off (and he leaves his socks on the floor and she starts nagging you to take out the trash).
The mundane, everydayness of life can kill even the best laid out fairy tale can’t it? Every girl from age 2 has heard or read the tales of Princesses and Prince Charmings and we believe that one day ours will find us. Guys believe that their public good girl turned freak in private is always just around the next club corner. But no one ever writes what in the hell is supposed to happen next? We know how the story begins, but the ending is never quite as good as the author portrays it.
But… what if we all believed in magic though? The magic of our thoughts, which leads to the magic of our actions. Which leads to a near magical storyline that only we can write. What if we knew instinctively that the story–the fairy tale– was ours to write any way that we want. That the reason the middle and endings are left out of those stories of old, is because each of our stories are different and to write out just one way to a happy ending would be, kindof, as mundane as the lives we already sometimes live anyway. Imagine the power we’d have to keep our love lives brewing with possibility if we believed in pixie dust. Imagine the pages we’d write. Imagine what the divorce rate would be like then. I hear it coming…the congregation of head shaking. Wait, wait, wait…
If I were to write my love story, in it, I am an exotic temptress of a Queen (kingdom, of course, pending) who has a gift for weaving love spells for my friends. They line up to receive the gifts of my powers: love that is everlasting, passion unmatched, and a joy that feels like flying. I am generous with my brand of pixie dust and love surrounds me everywhere I look.
The only place my pixie dust can’t touch is my own love life. That’s because there is no love life to speak of. See, the thing about magic is that there has to be something for it to focus on in order for it to settle in. (Read: ain’t no guy come along worthy of my dust.) So, my story goes unfinished, until I lock eyes with someone long enough for the magic to make sense and the story to take on a life of its own, as I write down every delicious morsel of it.
Hopeless romantic? NOT really. Hopeless? Maybe. Cliche? Never. What I’m talking about is something more substantial and sustaining than some guy galloping through my hood on a white horse. First of all, nobody really rides horses anymore and secondly, I’d much prefer something with four wheels. Horses don’t have room enough for baby seats.
But since we’re back on fairy tales, if you notice, just about every one of those princesses in those fairy tales had their love thwarted by some sort of alternative pixie dust, sent to keep them from their impending happiness with that guy she just met. It was always some jealous witch (read: hater who “rubs in” the perils of her failed relationship on you) who used her powers for evil rather than for good. (which causes you to believe that all relationships are doomed to fail). Hmmm. Could it be? Our magic goes both ways?
I’m thinking right now that we all would do well by embracing our (good) inner magician and start to spin miraculous spells of love in our lives, particularly with the people we are with. If you don’t see yourself as a Merlin or Merlina– maybe–you are an author who can rewrite the storyline of your love life any way you choose. Maybe, you’re like me, a temptress of a Queen (kingdom pending), throwing the pixie dust of love on everyone but herself.
Whatever the case, I can only pray by now that you realize the spells and story lines and pixie dust I’ve been referring is something readily available in all of us. Some people call it creativity. I just happen to call it “magic” and I believe in it whole-heartedly.
The moral of this story? I can’t call it. Just some food for thought. Thank you for reading this though. Peace and many loving and magical blessings. –e-