Everyone Believes In Magic

I would like to thank everyone who left me birthday wishes, that was very sweet of you all.  My birthday was nice, I went out to dinner and to the book store and that was about it.  But it was fine, I had a lovely day.

Today we had intended to go to a movie, but I had a terrible headache from an ear/sinus infection.  So R kindly went off to the store without me and left me at home.  Just as he was leaving "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium" was coming on after the movie he had been watching.  Now of course I love that movie for reasons that should be obvious.

Between the movie and a comment I made on my last post about always waiting for something magical to happen that never does...I started thinking.  I realized that everyone believes in a little bit of magic.

R is a very logical, straight forward, seeing is believing sort of guy.  But when I got up he was watching one of his favorite movies; "Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory."  (The one with Gene Wilder, not the one with Johnny Depp.)

Suddenly I wondered why he likes this movie so much.  In fact the more I thought, the more I realized he likes quite a few fantasy type movies.  That is rather incongruous with his personality...or is it?  Perhaps living deep within his soul is that little boy that still believes that magic can happen.

But what constitutes magic?  Sure we all have a mental image of the magician pulling the rabbit out of the hat.  But that's not really magic, it's just an illusion.  We also conjure up images of Harry Potter-esque magic, but we all know that type of thing isn't real.

So what makes magic? 

A little later I went downstairs to have a bath.  As I was running the water, my ever present bathing companion was sitting on the counter.  My cat, Gypsy likes to come in the bathroom.  She knows that is our special room that no men or dogs are allowed into.  She was trying to steal a tube of lip gloss without me noticing.  Gypsy has a little hoard of items she steals from me.  I check it periodically and always find a couple pieces of jewelry, some lip gloss, makeup brushes and other things of "Mom's" she can pilfer.  She never takes R's stuff.  But she has an unnatural attachment to me.  In her little feline brain her stash of treasures is magical because they seem special to me, and she wants to share that.

At some point in our lives we develop a little ritual before we do something special or we have a lucky charm.  For years I always watched "Meet Me In St. Louis" the night before I would head out to the Kansas City show.  I always had a good show as long as I watched the movie.  Of course it wasn't because of the movie, it was because I believed I would.  The movie was simply a tool that I needed to get to that place of self belief.

Like Molly Mahoney in Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, all we have to do is believe to find the magic.  It's out there, there is no special formula or item that is automatically magical.  It's out there everywhere and also within us.  All we have to do is believe in it, and a small part of each and every one of us already does in some way or another.

On Mr. Magorium's last day he tells Molly that her life is an occasion, rise to it.  All of our lives are a special magical occasion...all we ever have to do is rise to it!