Reach

I was recently told something to the affect of: “Why try and hold onto the magic? No matter what you do, it will always disappear.” Normally I would have taken into account (and I do stress this) that I was told this by someone in a rotten mood, and people (me at least) love spreading their dark clouds around. There is nothing more sickening than a happy person when you’re in bad spirits. And I wouldn’t have thought further on what this person had said… had, for one, it not been about magic (and I’m not using magic in terms of sorcery here, but more as an expression of wonder and happiness) and, two, about Beauty and the Beast… and it’s magic. Now, at first I was readied to defend the ‘magic’ of Beauty and the Beast. Every time I watch it (which is only on occasions, since I don’t like watching it too often), I don’t like it any less. I know what’s going to happen, but that doesn’t ever take the magic away. And what I should have said rather than “Beauty and the Beast is magical!” was what I really, really believe – magic is what you make it.

If you don’t want it to be there, how can it exist? It’s like happiness. It can be found almost anywhere, but only if you want to be happy and only if you let yourself be.

This is a very apt quote I found that summarizes my feelings on this subject: “That’s the thing with magic. You've got to know it's still here, all around us, or it just stays invisible for you.” ~ Charles de Lint.

Probably the reason what said person told me stayed with me so much is because, if you haven’t noticed, it is a great deal of who I am. While I grasp the shallowness of fables and stories, I take the best of them with me because I choose to. I like believing that a ‘duckling’ can become a swan and all that… I realize this is becoming very fluffy, if not cheesy, but I also realized that I am a very fluffy and cheesy person. I know that, for the most part, life is not a pony ride with Mary Poppins, but I also know that life can be a lot more wonderful if you find magic in the unexpected places. Some people are glass half-empty, half-full people, but I am probably a glass filled with possibility type person myself. If you see the glass full of anything, why should it matter how much or how little of it there is in the glass? It’s there, and that’s what counts for me.

Hans Christian Andersen said this: “Every man's life is a fairy tale written by God's fingers.” I believe this – surprise, surprise. You’ve got to look for the magic to know where it is, and it can be just about anywhere if you give it a chance. God has given me a love for fanciful things, I’ll grant you, but you have no idea how much it has been a blessing in my life. I find His love in the strangest places, but that’s the way of things, isn’t it? He reaches in a unique, personal and unforgettable way. So, perhaps for some people in awful moods magic is always fleeting, but I must heartily disagree. It takes effort sometimes to find what you’re looking for, but it’s not impossible. And once you find it, there’s nothing quite like it.

“There is no surprise more magical than the surprise of being loved: It is God's finger on man's shoulder.” ~ Charles Morgan

Toodle Pip.