Finding the Magic

I am a bit of a romantic. I tend to move through life with the intense expectation that everything will turn out beautiful, complete, and magical. And, to me, the notion of a “literary life” is romantic. A life full of literature can be nothing except beautiful, complete, and magic.

Living a literary life is one of exploration, romance, thrill, suspense, discovery, heartbreak, and laughter. It also means that each of these things can be experienced without leaving the cozy confines of your bedroom comforter.

 I have sailed to the ends of the earth, mapping my journey and embracing the unknown. My ship cutting through the waves and spraying salt in my face.

I have floated through space, the only thing between the endless galaxies and me just a thin suit and a glass mask.

I have fought dragons and trolls and ogres and thieves with my great sword, staving off fiends and saving my damsel.

I have been hundreds of people and explored thousands of places. My experiences have all blurred together to become this cluttered mix of reality and fiction. I have learned more about the world from words than I could ever hope to in actuality.

I used to sleep with books under my pillow. Their hard spines lifting my head above the ordinary dreams and carrying me into nighttime narratives only readers can have. My favorite characters leading me through made up worlds and twisty plots. I would dream up side stories to the novels I was reading and wake up confused as to why Jane Austen would give Elizabeth a cell phone or frustrated because Frankenstein’s monster had stolen my car.

Most of my books have stains in their pages. Notorious for being physically unable to put down a book, I have spilled everything from nail polish to soup onto and into my books. Their stains and rips and bruises don’t bother me, however. No spill or drop can maim the magic of their stories.

It’s funny how, if the right words are placed in just the right order, a story can bring me in so close that I actually lose my grip with reality. How is it that an author can describe how a character wrinkles their nose in distaste and, suddenly, I relate so completely with this character and her story? What is the magic that can make me feel so intensely for a land in which I have never set foot?

The words of Albus Dumbledore feed into my mystical beliefs concerning the written word.

  “Words are, in my not so humble

  opinion, our most inexhaustible

  source of magic. Capable of both 

  inflicting injury and remedying it.”

For so long I have focused on the consumption of these words and stories, but never considered the creation of them. I understand words. I understand their power. I understand their use. I just hope my romantic literary life can help me understand their magic.

And I have often asked myself whether I have that same magic within me.