The doctor tells me that magic is just undiagnosed science, as he slides a wand into my throat to see my body from the inside out. He’s hoping to find a piece of me that tells a better story than the whole of me. He’ll take it with him. Lock it up. Fill it with potion and spell. Get a reading.
I think that everyone is probably a little more magic than they realize.
I think about the little magics we pass to each other. I’m wearing purple because a little girl once complimented this top, and told me that they could see me better when I wear purple. She looked up to the sky, and then smiled her approval to me.
I’m ready early because a nurse once said it made her days easier when people offered extra courtesies such as this.
We shape each other with what we cast.
There was a comment once here, “When do we move on?”, and it seeped a lot of creativity from my life even though I tried to not let it. My story is tired. How could it not be? I myself am a tired song, and everything tangles back to a few key notes.
This doctor’s magic is only happening today because once upon a time, I went to prison. It’s only happening because I once was willing to risk anything, even fire, to get back to my husband in time.
When he takes the piece of me, it hurts, and the comment rises in me like a bunny leaping from a top hat. When do we move on?
When do I get to move on?
I shake it out of my hat. I turn it into a dove. I let it fly into the rafters of my mind and the sky. It comes back to me and sings a song of my magic and movement.
Abracadabra.
I have come so far, and I have moved along more than I once ever dreamed possible. Truly, I have moved more in this life than even seems likely, and what I have learned is — life is not a race, and there is no point in measuring distance because the finish line appears anywhere it sees fit.
My friends like to say that I’m in their heart, and that they wish me happy. The good magic of that fills me up and sometimes I think I go through life like a balloon held up entirely by thin skin, big love, and maybe one good knot.
A purple balloon, I hope.
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rarasaur 
Brilliant.
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“A piece of me that tells a better story” This is really insightful, thank you!
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What an inspiring post. I wonder the same thing about my own writing, sometimes tiring of the repetition, but your post made me reflect objectively – we write until struggle becomes wisdom ad then we write to lift up another. Moving on is a myth, just like closure.
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I like to think of moving sideways, rather than moving on. We walk alongside the things that have happened—then sometimes we walk ahead of them, sometimes behind them, sometimes in another street altogether, sometimes seeing them and sometimes trying to look the other way. Sometimes we stop and sit with them for a while, and then go on our way again.
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This is so beautifully crafted. I didn’t read each word, I felt each word.
You are indeed a magician. With words.
Sending you love and blessings!
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Your story is not tired! It’s so inspiring. As is your writing 💛
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It is your story; it can be whatever the way you want. You’ll move on one day. Whenever. Or not. It’s all fluid. It doesn’t matter because you are a purple balloon of love, even in tiredness, held aloft by the magic of love – our own and others. Hope the doctor finds good magic.
Alison 🤗
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I would posit that someone who asks when do we move on has possibly had little to anchor them to shore. They cannot see the ebbs and flows of your days, the hours spent apart from that which holds you, the distance from here to eternity where love goes to wait the day when we can hold it again, despite the other loves, other anchors that come along. Sending gentle hugs my dear friend, wishing we could have had that cuppa tea before I moved out of California. But alas, our words across the miles will have to do.
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Your words are very wise here. Deeply good. They even touched me, too. x
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One. Good. Knot. 💜
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