Magic isn’t real but what if it is?
There’s no wand that can fix the plumbing, no spell that makes your rent disappear, no broomstick that'll get you to work without sitting in traffic behind someone who still doesn’t understand how turn signals work. But still… It may not be real in a wand-waving, Hogwarts-letter-arriving kind of way (although I still check the mail with a certain amount of misplaced optimism). I’m talking about the kind of magic we all used to know existed – the kind that didn’t require proof because we felt it in the very core of our beings; childhood magic.
Remember that kind?
When we were mermaids swimming in the vast oceans of our bathtub. When the treehouse was a castle and we were the kings and queens overlooking our backyard kingdom and issuing royal decrees to our subjects who took the form of younger family members. When we were fierce warriors and sticks were our weapon of choice.
We were never told that was magic and some of us may have unfortunately missed it entirely in a rush towards the neverending cycle of laundry and dishes that is adulthood. Those of us that did see it never needed to be told whether magic existed because we knew – we lived it. It was in the stories we created, the adventures we imagined, and the limitless possibilities we believed in.
It was obvious when we were kids but at some point the truth of magic was traded in for the reality of mortgages and bills. We started thinking about what was practical, mature, and responsible. We slowly distanced ourselves from mermaids, castles, and warriors – filing them away in a small corner of our heart as we waited for them to slowly fade from our memories completely. We stopped pretending.
But the truth is that magic didn’t disappear. We just stopped looking for it.
I’ve been one of the lucky ones that never stopped believing because I never stopped seeing it – in the way my nephews and nieces used to build worlds from pillows and cardboard boxes. Now, I see it in the way my children look at a new place with wonderfilled eyes as if they’re seeing an unexplored planet. I see it in their wild, unapologetic belief that anything is possible.
Childhood wonderment is the original kind of magic. It lives in imagination, curiosity, in the willingness to believe in things that have no business in the minds of the practical, mature, and responsible – or so we’ve been told.
It doesn’t have to be proven and it doesn’t demand to be seen but it does deserve to be. No, we can’t go back to believing in magic, not completely, not with the same conviction of children. We have taxes to do, deadlines to meet, responsibilities to take care of. But we can borrow some of their wonder. We can listen a little closer when we’re told there’s a spy amongst the teachers, we can step a little faster when there’s a dragon attacking the fairy village, we can take a little more time to build that fort so that the castle's defenses aren’t compromised. We can laugh at nonsense. We can let ourselves pretend.
Magic in the way we think of it may not be a reality but there is still magic in this world. Childhood wonderment is magic and we as adults can still find it by looking through the eyes of children and fostering their imagination.
So magic isn’t real… but maybe it is and it’s just waiting for us to see it.