Sometimes I don’t believe in the magic I believe in… Er, well, it is something like that. I mean, things happen in life that you never imagine could be possible. Some things are unbelievably bad, and others are unbelievably good. For instance, the Cardinals lost their last two football games. They had an amazing year with eleven wins and a spot in the playoffs, but the @#&$$!!! St. Louis Rams broke their first AND their second string quarterbacks in that last win they won. No more wins for this year barring a playoff miracle. And I had been developing a heart problem since we went to San Diego in October to see my son graduate from Marine boot camp. I have been waking up every night with heartbeat arrhythmia… at least, that’s what I thought it was, and what the doctor suspected it was… but it wasn’t. I went in yesterday to get the bad news from the cardiologist, and he showed me test results that proved my heart is totally healthy and beating normally. Apparently I was being fooled by muscle spasms in my chest caused by arthritis in my rib-cage. Don’t that beat all? Bullwinkle shows us there is nothing up his sleeve, reaches in into the magic hat expecting to pull out a lion, and we get a little white rabbit.
Tag Archives: magic
Watch Me Pull a Rabbit Out of My Hat!
The Truest of Magicks
Okay, life is like this; you are born, a lot of dumb stuff happens that you are mostly not in control of, you suffer a little bit, you are happy a little bit, and then you die. That is a pretty gloomy prospect, and most of us spend our entire lives obsessing over it, examining it with microscopes, doctoring it with needles and potions and chainsaws, trying to make it last a little longer, wailing and complaining about our sorry allotment, and wasting what little time we have. So what secret exists that could ever make a difference? Could ever open up our eyes… even just a tiny bit?
The secret, as far as I can tell (and I am certainly one of the dumber and more random among you because I am cursed with insight and wisdom won through suffering and making huge mistakes), is reading the right books.
I am not alone in this sort of thinking. There are those who believe that if you gather the best books together into a personal library and read them, they add experiences and knowledge to your life that you would not otherwise have. (Of course, one must acknowledge, especially if you read fiction, that most books are filled with lies and misinformation, and some, Bill O’Reilly’s Killing Jesus leaps to mind, might leave you stupider than you were when you started.) It deepens, broadens, and intensely colors the experience of life.
People who read books a lot… really read them, and re-read them, and collect them, and study them, and think about and write about them… are called wizards. Wizards are wise men. It is what the word means. Being one does not make you better than anyone else. In fact, wizards are generally weaker than normal men. It comes from all that ruining of eyes and fuddling up brains with too much thinking. You don’t want a wizard to back you up in a fist fight. You will certainly lose. And you don’t want a wizard to tell you how live your life. They are not good role models. But if a wizard tells a story, you should listen. Because if you really listen, and the wizard is really wise, you can expand the borders of your life, and push on nearer to immortality.
Magical Moments
There comes a time, a moment of truth, in which a decision has to be made, a problem has to be solved. In the teaching business those moments can occur once per hour, or fifty times in the space of two minutes. You can bat 900, hit nine out of every ten out of the park, and still come out on the losing end. More often than not, you lose. You continue to get it wrong, and you feel totally defeated at the end of the day. No World Series of education for you. Sorry about that. But once in a while, you do not fail. You say the perfect thing to diffuse the situation. You think of the perfect example that, once explained, turns on every light bulb in every head in the room. That is magic. That is the reason you teach.
I am writing a novel right now, The Magical Miss Morgan, about a teacher. Without making a mystery about it, the teacher in the story, Miss Francis Morgan, is really me. I am basing this story on things that actually happened to me. Now, before the yelling and the accusations start, I will confess that I realize I am a male teacher and the main character is female, and there are things a female teacher does all the time, like hugging a student, that a male teacher can never do. And I must also confess that this teacher I am writing about loves all her students, even the ugly and stupid ones, and that is probably only true for teachers who really are magical. I further realize that the fairies in the story, just like the ones in Peter Pan, are not real outside of the story being told. I’m not insane… well, okay, I’m a teacher… a middle school teacher… so let’s just say I am not completely insane.
But there is real magic. It happens in that moment when you desperately need that perfect solution to pop out of the magic hat like a white rabbit and say, “Howdy!” Because if you have the courage to reach into that hat and pull the rabbit out, more often than not, it is there. And it doesn’t end when the teaching ends. I hit the wall with this novel at about 30,000 words. I wrote myself into a corner with no way out. But then I realized that I already had the answer. I am basing this story on what really happened. So, all I have to do is turn me into her and sprinkle some fairy dust, and voila! the rest of the novel is already plotted and as good as written. Everything fell into place in only a moment.
Filed under humor, NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney, teaching
What Mickey’s Magical Tome says about Horror and Fear
I never could watch only the start of the monster movie, the late-night Saturday creature feature. Once begun, I had to see it to the very end. I had to know the evil was ended and the horror was defeated.If I did not find out, then nightmares ensued. The night I watched John Carpenter’s original Halloween, I had to get up in the night and check the closet fifteen times. I almost didn’t survive number thirteen, nearly dying from dread, and the light stayed on for the rest of the night. I need to see that which scares me in the light of reason and hope. I need to face my fears and overcome them with mental and spiritual power. No story is ever wholly unreal, and no enemy stalks me forever without end.
(You probably can’t read it, but my magical tome contains a list of magic words, words that mean “magic”, incantations against the fear of the dark.)
Filed under Uncategorized
Magic Carpet Rides
There is a thrill to be had from flying. Spread your arms and rise up on high. The magic carpet lifts us up into the air, and we ride towards destiny. My friend, he is a pyromancer. He can make fire from the air and cast it forward to light up the sky. In the village they see us coming and tremble from dread. but we are not evil, in spite of our blackness. We come to bring light and fire to the people who have survived the darkness of the cold, cold night. So what does it all mean? Meaning is like fire. It warms us when it doesn’t burn us. What is it all for? Pursuing purpose is like flying, winging toward the next sunrise.
Catch a Falling Star 