Magic

I fell to musing today… about flowers and plants, sacred places, about magic and what magic might be? Magic was alluding definition. At least the type I am thinking about. It is here and then gone… it is the smile you flash at an old place or the thought of a new memory that is being made. The way, when you look across the room, and are drawn to kindness, smiling, glancing, connecting to the moment. Magic, the kind words that are said when we are frustrated, or angered by the words used to describe an event - that calls us to our best selves.

Yesterday, I was being trained to answer tickets for a help desk– and my colleague reminded me to be cognizant of the teacher, the end user, a person with a class full of kids – wanting to do their best. Remembering that we are teachers too, and to take advantage and capture the teachable moments. Magic!

Living life that way, remembering the words we use, the flowers we plant, the way our lives reach out and touch the world. Our words fall out of our mouths and sometimes I am appalled by what I said, or did, or wish I had said. I am quieter today than I was a year ago, much quieter than two, and by that measure I am silent compared to how I was three or five or ten years ago. Loud and needing to be heard – but saying nothing. Loud, trying to create a path, digging furiously – a hole to China.

The flowers and trees now offer respite, a place to stop and ponder the seasons. I am calmer and more able to hear and listen – because I have mused and dreamed across the seasons, and mostly, because I have listened to my self on this journey. I hope that when I come into contact with people I am gentler, that I am not bowling them over with what I know and how hard I work. I hope that today I hear you, hear others without inserting my story, my words, my life and my needs – drowning out yours, or others. I am here today – in a kinder and gentler place, a place of hope and kindness.

I see the flowers that are planted on the deck, the home that is little by little becoming ours. Today I am putting away pictures and gathering trash from the porch. I am ready to move these garbage bags of the past that bound me. I need less and have more. That is magic. I muse with words – silently, on my own terms. When I send them out to the world it is alright if no one hears them. Sometimes – others say thank you, or that they like what I wrote – and I am grateful that these days my words land in places that I never imagined. I land in ways I never imagined. And it is magical.