Everyday Magic

Ever been accused of telling yourself a fairytale to get through day? It's meant to be derogatory. But the constant bombardment of truths from every corner of the globe, prioritized often by magnitudes of misery must somehow be softened. Surely the accumulation is too much for the human heart to carry. So I admit it. I tell myself a fairytale on the daily, sometimes hourly. It's this: There is magic in the world. It's there. It's just waiting for you to notice and delight in it. This morning's was the Love Magic of watching my prickly teen let her guard down to allow 8 year-old Pip and Six year-old Sven to cuddle her like puppies.  I said to her. "This is what I live for. These are the moments that we do everything to have." They are so easy to miss, because we are tired or stressed or busy doing something that will not matter 10 minutes let alone ten years from now.

Yesterday, magic was everywhere. We have been cooped up for a week. All four children have rotten cases of Hand Foot and Mouth Disease. Now in the healing stage, they feel better but they still look like a still shot from "Hot Zone". So our friend Seana, and her three children, all of whom we'd infected before we were symptomatic, came over. They too were cooped up. It turned into a spotty friends party. Seana and I took the boys, (Matthias, 12 , Toby 9,) Sven, Pippy and six year-old Sadie for an early evening walk on the lakefront. It was warmish but wildly windy and the waves roiled recklessly, reflecting back to us our restive spirits.  We skirted Foster Avenue Beach and walked the concrete shoreline north as the waves exploded spectacularly against the lake wall or even more grandly, bounced backward off the concrete to meet incoming swells. The two would slam together, mount high into flashing blue-green pyramids, and explode with foam at the tops before cascading down into the boiling surf. The children, their viral malaise blown from them and carried away over the water, began to run and leap and dance and shriek. Their feral nature receiving the spirit of wind and wave vibrated with deep new/ancient joy. Next, we found ourselves crisscrossing the storm-packed sands of Hollywood Beach, where, in the drying foam and sand ridges we found glass and pebbles, a wide puddle where a flock of seagulls rested, watchful of the weather, and the beautiful carcasses of cicada and monarch cast from the water alongside the last dregs of a fickle midwestern summer.

Homeward, we meandered south along the pedestrian lane of the newly laid bike path,  between the park and Lake Shore Drive. Globe-topped street lamps had just been installed and the eastern side of the path was strewn with massive chunks of concrete, unearthed while digging the power line trenches. The trench was only about 18 inches deep and six or so wide with mud and water at the bottom. The recent rains had left everything bright and squishy and puddles glistened in and around the piles of dirt and concrete alongside the trench. The kids scrambled atop the construction detritus and soon feet and hands, cuffs and hems were wet and splattered. Then I saw the cornice: A beautiful broken piece of architectural stone lying ignominiously in the ruined concrete. It was likely waiting to be hauled away on Monday. Seana bent down and called to Matty. The two of them carried it to rest beneath a tree, in hopes it would escape the dump truck and remain a treasure for others to find. Just like that, our walk transformed into a treasure hunt as we discovered chunks of old brick, marble, and broken tile, the neck piece of a vintage bottle, sparking shards of blue, green, and white stained glass, both milky and clear, and many tiny remnants of broken china.

The trencher, sitting Sunday-idle, at the turn of the path had unearthed the city of decades past and shown us a glimpse of what stood here long before we did. The kids, having finished gleaning, ran ahead to marvel at the long horizontal blade of the one-man trenching tractor. The many jagged teeth of the chain blade were bigger than the oldest child's hands and caked in hard mud. They picked at the mud with small careful fingers and took turns climbing into the driver's seat and pretending to drive.

Soon, some small treasures were discovered missing, prompting a tearful search back through trench and pile, and though some bits were recovered, a tiny triangle of white china with the pink rose eluded us. But tears slowed with the unearthing of a new exquisite shard of blue glass. The light waned and we headed back, through the tunnel, across the damp, lush grass of the park and into the deepening shadows of the high-rises along Sheridan.  I remarked on how sad it was that the rusty bridge railings had stained the new mosaic at the walkway entrance.
"Really?" She queried. "I think it's beautiful." Then after a pause, "Wabi sabi."
"Wabi sabi?" I asked.
"Beautiful decay."
"Mmmm" I replied, thinking of the cornice lying now beneath the tree and the city we'd just glimpsed beneath our city.  I wondered if I could see the rusty tile as beautiful.

After glimpsing pink peeping through the branches overhanging the path, we meandered over to the trees and pulled tart marble-sized apples from fruit-laden tree limbs and compared the flavor from tree to tree. All were sharply sour but some hinted sweetness and some, the dusty tannins of retreating summer. The lamps came on along the walking path, their light, for the first night in months, unaccompanied by cicada song.  A few last dragonflies darted overhead, frantic to find mates before the next, (their last) storm. There was a sweet-faced dog, named Miles, who happily received the last of the children's fading energy in the form of affectionate scratches and high-pitched praise. He showed his gratitude with silly flip-flopping wags of his tightly curled tail.

Finally, into our building and up in the elevator, as the sky outside darkened to a lamplit cobalt. The children didn't  know it's wasn't just an elevator. No, last night it was a tesseract, transporting us, tired and heart full, from Fairyland back our little home among the lights of the night city.

#magicintheworld
#fairytalesaretrue
#behereforyourlife