Well, I suppose it’s the grown up thing to finally admit that magic doesn’t exist. So I guess I’ll have to admit that I’ll never get to Hogwarts, or fall into Wonderland, or tumble into Narnia crawling through closet doors… And sadder than my admitting it, is the fact that I don’t care. It’s a resigned admission. Magic isn’t real. Life is real. Life is hard. Magic. Is. Not. Real.
But…
there really is nothing more magical than those stories that keep children awake all night, trembling with excitement, little eyes racing down the text, little hands shaking to turn the page, those stories read by flashlight, past bedtime, tangled under a stifling pile of blankets so that Mom won’t suspect and chastise you for breaking the rules.
I remember, in first grade, at age seven, finally having gotten a copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and not being able to put it down till I finished. I remember shoving a towel under my door crack to hide the fact that I was up at two in the morning on a school night, desperate to know what happened next. And I remember, after each chapter, becoming more and more depressed that it was nearing the end, the stack of pages grasped between my left thumb and fingers were waning as the pages I’d read grew thicker and thicker. And I remember, right when I finished, clutching the closed book to my chest, desperately aware of the fact at that moment, there was nothing more important to me than getting my hands on the next one. I remember hugging it to my heart as though if I pressed against it hard enough, I would somehow fall inside and live in that magical world that left me wonderstruck for the rest of my life. God, books used to electrify me.
Watching the opening ceremony tonight, I was really very touched, in a really oddly emotional way, by that gorgeous, gorgeous tribute to children’s literature. I screamed when I saw JK Rowling, and as Captain Hook and Cruella Deville and Voldemort blossomed out over the children’s beds, nightmares that were soon to be banished by hundreds of adorable Mary Poppinses, I couldn’t stop smiling. I am so grateful for children’s literature and I am so glad that such a wonderful tribute was paid.
But I also couldn’t help but feel a little….well, a lot….melancholy? Bittersweet? Sad, even…that I have long since left behind sitting in a closet with a flashlight staying up all night desperately wondering if Harry ever found the Sorcerer’s Stone, if Jo married Laurie, if Aslan defeated the White Witch.
It’s been so long since I’ve been overwhelmed by a fantasy world so desperately that I’ve forsaken meals just to finish a book, it’s been so long since I’ve become obsessed with something that isn’t real or useful, something fantastic or whimsical.
Part of that is because it’s really difficult to be an adult and to be affected by whimsy like a child, having been exposed to this all but whimsical world, the other part is that as you grow up, there comes a definite calcification of your sense of wonder, you become less prone to shock, to whim, to awe.
You become hard and you stop imagining because you become rational.
You start dismissing the impossible because you stop having time for fantasy.
You stop dreaming big because you’re too afraid of failure. ‘
You stop believing you can do or be anything you want, and start settling for what is easy, what is safe.
You go to bed when you’re supposed to.
You eat healthy.
You follow the rules.
You become jaded.
Your heart breaks.
You break hearts.
You lose people.
Things change.
You stop believing that the world is beautiful.
You stop believing in laughter.
You stop believing in magic.
But even if you don’t believe in magic now, doesn’t mean there wasn’t a time that you did. Because there was…
Because the year you turned eleven you strained your eyes against the sky for any sign of an owl with a letter in her beak.
Because you crawled through kitchen cabinets and under bathroom sinks hoping that you might brush against a fir branch covered in snow and turn to meet a friendly faun.
Because once upon a time, anything was possible.
Everything was possible. You could be president. You could go to the moon. You could change the world. You could fall in love.
But now impossibility is the biggest possibility.
And goodness what I wouldn’t give just to have that sense of wonder back. What I wouldn’t give to believe that all of my dreams could come true.
But, I guess this is growing up.
It fucking sucks.
…except here’s the thing.
I know, I know, the moment I pick up a copy of Harry Potter, or Narnia or the fairy tales my mom used to read me, I’ll go tumbling back into that enchanted child that I used to be, because somewhere inside me, she still exists. For now.
I hope I never lose her. That magic, even an inkling, is inside me. And I think, well, I hope, that I keep it forever.
And you do, too.
For both of our sakes.
Even after the hard knocks and the rainy days, I hope that magic will always be ours……long after Voldemort is dead, long after Narnia is gone…
…long after I grow up.
