Trading Magic

"I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now."   ~ Bob Dylan

It’s fun to feel my heart growing younger with each passing year.  The part of me who began to know playfulness and lightheartedness at 50 has decided to continue to play long past dark, pretending not to hear the distant call saying it’s time to come in for dinner – willing time to expand these glorious clear winter days – delighting in the minutes stretching like magic into the lengthening light.

Childhood offered me little in the way of lightheartedness.  It was my children who awakened in me a sense of wonder and imagination I’d not known before.  I clearly remember glancing over at my beautiful baby girl, lying on her blanket, still as a statue as she stared out the window.  Kneeling down next to her I looked out the window.  It was just beginning to snow. I watched as she tracked the snowflakes – locking her sight on a single flake – her eyes following it as far as she could – and then another.  I lay down next to her and began to do the same.  I’d never thought to watch a single flake of snow.  I felt something open inside me and time fall away.  Pretty soon there were too many flakes coming down too fast and we traded one bit of magic for another.

Maybe that’s what I’m doing now.