A Magical World

I had the good fortune of being out with my sister and her two daughters the other night. I was wearing a necklace of ceramic beads that dangle off a chain. The beads are painted in muted colors from within the bead, which has the effect of the beads looking iridescent and quite eye-catching. Those with young children will know where I am going with this… My six month-old niece, Nora, loved them! I have seen the look of determination on the faces of Olympic athletes that didn’t match her own. For an uninterrupted thirty minutes, she reached and grabbed and laughed when she reached her goal and grunted when she didn’t. It took all my strength to fend her off, trying desperately to keep these small beads from entering her mouth, which was the other remarkable aspect of this whole situation: All she wanted to do was eat them. And there was a part of me that wanted to let her! She was trying so hard and I could see—within her fiercely willful eyes—how delicious the beads looked to her. Better than the peaches that she loves so much and certainly better than the peas, which were now just left to grow stale on the table as Nora tackled more juicy delicacies. Her will, strength, and determination were indeed a sight to behold. At one point, she nearly leaped off her uncle’s lap and ran over to mine!

In the meantime, in between rounds of this wrestling match taking place across the table, my sister was telling me a story about Molly, Nora’s four-year old sister. Molly had recently found an old toy that played tapes of different instruments performing classical music. When the Harp played Molly broke into a very specific dance that my sister had not seen before. “Where do you learn that dance, Molly?” she asked. “The music told me what to do,” replied her daughter very matter-of-factly.

I began to wonder, when does it happen that we lose the perception of the world as magic? When do we cease to believe that ceramic beads are delicious and that music talks to us? Does it happen at five, when we’re sent off to school? Seven? Sixteen? Thirty? These were such melancholy questions for me to ponder as they triggered a longing for life to be as simply, and matter-of-factly, magical as it is for Molly and Nora. Likewise, it was sad to consider that life won’t always be this way for them. Assuming I hang on to my beads a while longer, there may be a time when Nora no longer notices them. Or a time when Molly feels as though she has to dance like all of her peers, if she allows herself to dance at all, rather than as the music tells her to.

Is it possible to recapture the magic of life that exists for those who are under the age of five? I like to believe there is. Perhaps, if we slow down enough and shut-off our overly-critical, overly-analytical thoughts for just some moments, then the magic of the world that is already out there will have the opportunity to reveal itself to us. Upon hearing the newest music from Eddie Vedder (a voice that to me is one of the most beautiful sounds in this world), my body responded. I felt a bit like I had imagined Molly did listening to the harp play from her old toy: Lost in the melody, the verse, the longing I so identify with within his voice. It spoke to me. I look forward to lingering here a while longer, lost in the beautiful sound of one of my favorite artists. I’m grateful to Molly and Nora for reminding me to be with this magic. And who knows? May be later I’ll even taste a bead….