I remember my first taste of magic.
I was six and vacationing with my family at Virginia Beach. There was a ramshackle store just off the boardwalk near the pier. Can’t remember the name, but I do remember the top hat and cane that was on the sign.
My father and I wandered in one evening to escape a sudden rain, and for twenty minutes we were both entertained by the proprietor, a nameless man with a gray beard and an uncanny ability to conjure something out of nothing. I was mystified.
I remember my father telling me that it was all just a trick, that whatever magic there was in the world was harder to see and easier to dismiss. But I didn’t care. Subterfuge or not, I had been awakened into a world of possibility. That was all that mattered.
All these years later, I still love magic. But a Christmas present given by a distant relative this year threatened that love and forced me to make a decision–do I keep believing in that world of possibility, or do I surrender to a world of fact instead?
To read what exactly that present was–and the choice I made, too–please stop by katdish’s blog today. Maybe you’ll see what I’ve seen over my life. That you don’t necessarily have to see to believe, but you always have to believe to see.
