Pieces of Magic (300 words)

I suppose it is a uniquely American concept to believe that magic can only exist if it is evidenced by lightshows and fireworks. When we believe this, we lose the ability to see it where it really lives.

Recently, I had the pleasure of spending time with an old friend who does not live here in New York.We’ve been friends long enough that we can’t remember exactly how long it is, and we’re both married with children which kept us squarely in the realm of friendship. There was a moment, once, but it is long-past.

Here's the truth: I believe in the existence of magic. I believe it has the ability to transform us, to guide us, to remind us. It can be the source of our power or our greatest fear, and it rarely exists in thunderbolt flashes. Instead, it hides in our quiet corners, in those dark places we hope no one ever sees and, when we're lucky, our relationships.

Especially, I think, it’s those dark places and corners where the magic of old friendship lives. I had forgotten the simple pleasure of spending time with someone who knows me--at moments better than I think I know myself. And had forgotten the simple pleasure of chemistry--the kind that exists between people who know exactly who the other person is and likes them anyway.

This, I think, is the truest of all magics, the one that binds us. It lives in those old friends we can call after 20 years of silence, and the conversation picks up as though it was yesterday. It lives in the corners of our new relationships--those moments when we are at our absolute worst, and it turns out the company we’re keeping thinks we’re still okay. And it lives in the choices we made, and those we avoided. Hardly the flash and crack of the stage magician, and rarely as obvious. But always truer.