Hocus Pocus

Sitting cross-legged with my back against a wooden Pandorian trunk, I’d pull out a neglected, but familiar, box and sift through the contents: a white-tipped and black bodied wand, stack of playing cards, and a dizzying rope of polyester silk scarves.

After surveying the contents, I would place the dusty top back on the box, slide it into the trunk, and shut the closet door. From time-to-time, taking inventory of this box was an intriguing task I would complete for seemingly no reason.

Even from an early age I thought it silly—cheap card tricks and illusion-delusions. “Magic,” I thought, “couldn’t be boxed and sold!” I’d later come to call this a “red herring.”

Curious all the same, this so-called “magic kit.”

He taught me that true magic was in the experience, always. He was an engineer in spirit and trade; silently guiding the imaginative landscape I built during those years—and would come to neglect as I aged. “No worries,” I often remind myself, “it’s all there, in a penciled blueprint and he left you with all the materials. “

As I pull out my trinkets from that timespace, the forgotten landscape begins to materialize as a swirling array of both rational thought and wild truths. These reminders are nestled in (un)suspecting places throughout my adult home, acting as private portals.

The paperweight would rest effortlessly and surely upon my pillow—a guide in sleep and wake.