For a little while now, I’ve been looking for magic. It hasn’t been a difficult quest: I’ve discovered that it appears everywhere, even in the most unlikely places.
It’s in the sound of the subway door hissing shut behind you. It’s in the brown paper bag you bought from that cute cafe for breakfast, that you unwrap on a park bench. It’s in the maniacal giggle that comes over you at 3am when you’re three coffees in and still have pages of essay left to write. It’s at the bottom of the tea cup you sip absent-mindedly as you thumb through a book. It’s in the smile from the cashier, the rueful grin of others waiting beside you in a long queue, the ache in your shoulders from carrying your life in a small backpack. It’s in the late night bus ride with the skyscrapers behind you, and in the cooling of the sand under your feet as dusk sneaks in.
It’s in the rising and falling of your little brother’s chest as he sleeps with his arm curled around you, and the breath-taking squeeze of the best friend you haven’t seen in months. It’s in the shy smile you flash at a cute boy you’ll never see again, and the heavy gaze between you and the boy who has seen all of you.
A week ago I met up with a friend of mine. She’s crazy, in the best way possible; the kind of crazy that has you on the edge of your seat, waiting to find out where your minds will go next. “The people I connect with”, she said, “they live their lives vividly.” Vividness, she called it: seeking colourful experiences filled with emotion (both good and bad), the sort that you can sometimes control and often can’t.
A few days ago I talked to another friend – a writer, photographer, and generally ‘creative’ type. It’s a hunger, she told me, a burning desire to go and do and start and live.
Hunger, vividness, magic; it’s all cut from the same fabric. It’s what lights up people’s eyes and makes us feel connected and part of something. This is what I live for, and it’s infectious.
It wasn’t until I lost sight of it that I realized how important it was for me. For a while, in the first few months of university, I found myself living the same routine, too busy, tired and listless to notice or seek out the moments that excited me. A combination of a new country, new environment, having to let go of what I had left behind, and trying to figure out where I was going next left me feeling weighed down with this constant sadness. I didn’t have the energy to explore anything except the cracks on my bedroom ceiling (which I got to know a little too well). The vastness of the world frightened rather than excited me, and I burrowed into the safety of my routine, shutting out everything and everyone. I was so focused on making it through each hour that I forgot that there was any magic to find, let alone what it felt like to experience it.
And then, one day, the leaves started falling.
It was breathtaking – they spiralled, unannounced, catching the air and coming to rest on the cobblestoned ground. Standing in the warm evening clutching a cup of hot chocolate with friends around me, I suddenly felt exquisitely happy. In that moment, everything was ok.
It didn’t last. It took me months to emerge from the place of sadness and numbness. But the moments of magic were like stepping stones, gradually getting closer together until eventually, they were beneath every step I took again.
I’m still seeking out magic: in every step, every word with a stranger, every smile with a friend. It’s everywhere, really, especially in the most unlikely places. We just need to remember to look.
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