Making Magic

Thoughts on the balancing of the gifting and receiving of wonder

Photo by Kristopher Roller on Unsplash

Happy New Year, Friends, and a big welcome to all new subscribers! I felt such joy at seeing so many folks join the Substack in December, and want you to know how grateful I am that you are here.

It’s officially 2024, and after celebrating both the holidays and my dad’s life at a funeral service in Upstate New York a couple of weeks ago now, the sudden shift into January has me feeling an emotional whiplash of sorts. The cozy, celebratory days of December, drenched with nostalgic technicolor, have screeched quite suddenly to a halt, giving way to more muted glows and less sensational social calendars (though work calendars are making up for that by ramping back up - hello, spring semester!).

In my experience, the week after New Year’s Day often feels like a winter Sunday afternoon spent at my family farm as a young child - blank and endless - in the most luxurious way - time stretched out in front of me like fields of snow from here to the horizon that blanket seeds slumbering underneath until spring. This time of year always makes me wonder: what’s currently making itself manifest inside of me? What will burst forth and knock me back with beauty once spring comes, and winter gives way to warmth? What needs permission to bloom from the dark?

Since January has moved in like a new tenant, so has a fresh snowfall - our first significant one of the winter season. I must admit, that having the privilege of not needing to commute daily for work outside our apartment has afforded me more appreciation of the snow than I have had in years past. I went for a walk yesterday morning in Concord, accepting that it would take me twice the time it usually does, and not simply because of the black ice smattering the sidewalks and threatening my footholds. I found myself stopping every few dozen feet to pull off one of my mittens and fish out my camera phone from my coat pocket, eager to photograph as many details of the recent storm’s wintry decorations as I could. The world looked covered in white lace and I found myself wanting it to stay this way as long as possible. Each photograph I took was like a digital, delicate white doily; a talisman to tuck away in my pockets to keep me cool in the midst of the hard July sun still to come.

One of the things I love most about winter is the sense of awe and wonder that bubbles to the surface of my conscious experience as I realize just how impossible it becomes to conjure up the sweltering heat of a summer Saturday when my breath currently puffs clouds into the air in the middle of a Tuesday morning in January. The stark differences in temperatures, textures, and temperaments feels like something only accomplished by a magic trick.

Lately, I’ve been reflecting on this notion of magic, and how we make it for one another.

Sometime around Halloween, I began sinking deeper into a seasonal state of magic that the darker nights and the sherbet orange glow of Jack-O-Lanterns seem to encourage for me. To be clear, I’m not talking about the kind of magic that comes out of a wand wielded by someone in a wizard hat. When I speak of magic, I mean the deep knowing that there is something larger than us. Awe. Energy we don’t fully understand, but that animates us nonetheless. An ache, a profound sense of delight, a hunch that there is more than meets the eye. A balm, a wake-up call, an invitation to go beneath the everyday and make contact with the places and spaces (within and without) that evoke a zest for all that’s come before, for being alive in this moment, and for the legacies we might pay forward to those to come.

Lucy Maud Montgomery, author of the Anne of Green Gables series, says it best:

“It has always seemed to me, ever since early childhood, amid all the commonplaces of life, I was very near to a kingdom of ideal beauty. Between it and me hung only a thin veil. I could never draw it quite aside, but sometimes a wind fluttered it and I caught a glimpse of the enchanting realms beyond - only a glimpse - but those glimpses have always made life worthwhile.”

Magic greets us when we get lost in the pages of a book, we step into the dark of a movie theatre, and when we watch a child seeing the glow of Christmas tree lights for the first time, their eyes widening in wonder and disbelief.

Years ago, on my old blog site, I wrote something I called A Treatise on Magic. Rereading it just today, this sentiment (about sensing magic as a child) stuck out to me: