Magic in the Making

The first light of dawn was touching the sky, backlighting the trees, buildings and mountains in the distance when I stepped out on my balcony with a cup of coffee. When I first started sitting outside waiting for the sun to rise, it was just part of a healthy habit - of getting some sun for 10 minutes first thing in the morning. But the 10 minutes spent watching the sun made me ponder on so many things, why sunrises had this magical essence to it, how I had stopped seeing this magic in the last 2 decades of my life and how I am rediscovering it in these quiet moments.

Vivid sunrise colors playing peek-a-book with the clouds

As a child, I lived with my head in the clouds. I was forever daydreaming, doodling in my notebooks, and wandering through imagined worlds that felt far more interesting than the one in front of me. I struggled in school because my attention was always drifting somewhere beyond the classroom walls. While others seemed firmly planted on the ground, part of me was always chasing stories, and adventures just beyond the horizon. For many years, I thought this made me less than everyone else because my daydreams didn't really result in great grades in school. Practical things appeared to come naturally to other people while I was forever pursuing ideas that could not be measured or explained. Growing up often felt like a long process of being called back down to earth. Eventually, adulthood arrived with all its demands. There were careers to build, bills to pay, responsibilities to meet, and people to care for. Like many adults, I became busy surviving. The dreams grew quieter. Practicality took center stage while creativity waited patiently in the wings.

Then, late one night in 2020, something unexpected happened. I was working a night shift and taking a brief break. One of my patients was nearing the end of life. In the stillness of those early morning hours, my thoughts drifted to my father, who had passed away years before. As darkness slowly gave way to dawn, I found myself reflecting on mortality and the strange brevity of our lives. It seemed almost sad - that we love, dream, build, and hope, only to eventually leave it all behind? To strive for something, fleetingly have it, and end with nothing?

As I looked at the sad stars in the sky, an idea appeared. It was not a complete story. There was no plot, no outline, and no certainty about where it would lead. A confused girl searching for answers. A faerie. A whisper of a journey. That idea that would eventually become Searching for Faerie. At first, I tried to dismiss it. Adult life has taught me to be practical. I have so much to do, and so little time. Yet the story refused to leave. During the quiet hours of dawn when everything was done but the thinking, my attention would drift to it so I would write and rewrite for a few minutes every night. Looking back, I think it persisted because some forgotten part of me was asking to be remembered. In the business of life, I had stopped creating. I had stopped listening. I had become so focused on responsibilities that I had neglected the imaginative spark that had sustained me as a child. 

That brought me back to my inability to see the magic in a sunrise. I had taken it for granted - just another ordinary sunrise. I think life simply became louder for me. Responsibilities, worries, and routines drowned out the quieter voice of wonder. Yet that voice never completely left me. Magic does not disappear as we grow older or have more responsibilities. We just lose our focus on seeing it  and now I am rediscovering it in these quiet moments. Magical moments abound around us. We just don't see it because we’re too harried, or too distracted. The magic never leaves us at all. It waits patiently for us to remember where to find it. In Searching for Faerie, the girl finally finds it in her as it was there all along. For others, it may appear in a sunset, a piece of music, a painting, or the unexpected kindness of a stranger. 

The sun had already risen, the thick clouds had shifted leaving only a wispy blanket over the city. Below, the city had awakened. Cars hurried along the streets, each carrying someone toward the concerns and commitments of another ordinary day. I finished my coffee and sat for a moment longer, grateful for another sunrise unlike any that had come before it. Whatever the day might bring—challenges, disappointments, unexpected joys, or difficult news—would arrive in its own time and be met when it arrived. There was no need to carry it before then. I look to the sun, it did not struggle against the darkness. It simply rose - bringing with it the magical dawning of a new day. And perhaps there is a lesson in that.. Life asks the same of us. To meet what comes, to do what must be done, and then to let it pass. Fleeting, perhaps, but no less complete. Magic in the making.