Magic

We spent the day in the Magic Kingdom yesterday (aka Disneyland); as a graduation celebration for my son. We’ve been to Disneyland before of course (part of the wonder of the place is that it doesn’t seem to have changed much from when I visited it for the first time 900 years ago) with varying levels of “success.” My son’s assessment of the last time we were there (in 2003) was, “It was fun except for the injuring and the hair pulling” so our bar for this visit was set pretty low. There’s always a moment in Disneyland when things start to look as if they’re going to go south (and, I’ve discovered, this usually happens for us in front of the Village Haus—right next to the “Pinocchio’s Daring Adventure” ride—the scene of many a meltdown). Between the standing, schlepping, forking out of cash, crowds, and sheer sensory overload, most of us feel overwhelmed at some point in the day (and for the little ones, that point is usually about 3-4 PM, which is when you can find many, many children prostrate on the ground in Fantasyland screaming the wails of the damned). We managed to avoid any such scenes yesterday but after standing on line for thirty minutes to go on the Alice in Wonderland ride after about seven hours of merry-making, one of us remarked something along the lines of, “This is silly.” Hearing this, the lovely girl helming the caterpillar buggies into which we climbed said, without a trace of sarcasm, “But it’s a magical ride.”

Indeed.

This got me thinking (again) about magic and its role in creativity. I’ve been pondering this for a while now anyway and gliding above the spinning teacups (no takers for that ride in our group this time, sadly) I thought about how there always has to be a bit of magic in any creative endeavor, whether a cake or a piece of writing. I’m not talking about inspiration (which is also necessary) or perspiration (which is most of it), but a moment when everything comes together and the thing is realized in full color and dimension. For me, this usually happens right on the knife edge of despair—when a novel or a story or a book review or a cake feels as if it’s going to collapse under its own weight and is just never going to get finished (or wasn’t even meant to be) and is simply too difficult. For me, the hardest part of putting any cake together is frosting it. Even though it seems as if this should be one of the easier aspects, it is nearly impossible to get the lines exactly perfect. I keep going—smoothing and re-smoothing—as everything, including the kitchen, the floor, and my person becomes slowly coated in sugar and butter and crumbs and the time it will take to clean up moves from minutes to hours. And yet it is never done. It never looks quite right. Writing, though harder to see because there is no three-dimensional object sitting there by which to measure doneness, is similar. But then there’s that little bit of magic that happens—a sprinkling of fairy dust—and the thing pops into life. The colored strips and marzipan balloons go onto the graduation cake. The parrot looks fine perched on the pirate cake. The last chapter manages to tie it all together. The closing paragraph actually sounds like someone with a brain wrote it. How does this happen? I never know. It just does.

Unlike inspiration, magic does not come from within oneself. One can’t (or at least this one can’t) make it happen. But you can allow it to happen. You can set the table and be ready for it. (Or, as shown below, you can make a white rabbit out of fondant and wait for him to show you the way.)

Only then can you sit back in your caterpillar and enjoy the ride. 

Yes, he's a little creepy but what is magic without a chill or two?