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Life, actually…
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A 1950s MAGIC CHRISTMAS MEMORY
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When I was small–not too small, mind you–the world was still a magical place. I wanted to introduce everyone I knew to this magic world. I thought a smashing way to do this would be to become a magician. A prestidigitator. A master of illusion. A fake fakir who could fool and entertain his superiors all at once.
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Santa Claus, who still existed back then, gave me a big, garish book of illustrated magic tricks by Joseph Dunninger. I spent hours wearing that book out, trying to master the simple tricks within.
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Later, one of my most cherished gifts, my Rosebud, came, at yet another Christmas: a complete paper-covered case full of Mandrake the Magician magic tricks. I practiced alone in my room, tried out the easier ones on my brother Ronny, and spent hours hoarding and cataloging these and other sleight-of-hand acts and gags, dreaming of the day I’d be able to fool everybody at will with my suave patter and my dashing Batman cape (blue on the outside, red on the inside, or vice versa–confiscated from my sister Barbara).
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What I did not yet know about myself was that I was shy, painfully shy, and that my only confidence remained hidden within myself, was only apparent in my heart.
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By the time I got up enough nerve to perform in front of my entire family in the dining room (even my father, though fidgety, sat bemusedly and watched my show), I was nervous but determined to go ahead with the tricks I’d learned. The easiest trick I knew, which I believe Barbara had taught me, was the one where you make an empty glass go through a solid table and land on the floor, hopefully unbroken. I actually pulled this off successfully if slowly, and went through a few other tricks I knew before the performance faded to an end.
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The family watched patiently if stoically. My fantasies had come to a head, had been realized right in my own dining room. I was satisfied and thereafter gave up magic, for I had not yet been given the gift of self-confidence and knew that I could never stand before strangers and fool them, too. I knew my family watched because they had to, because they had manners and could not help but watch, and because they loved me and would have enjoyed the show even if it had been terrible.
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So, my little box of tricks lay stored and labeled by my mother, waiting for re-discovery.
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After that, I went on to other hobbies, including amateur astronomy and sky observation. Now that was a hobby tailor-made for a shy person. I never had to perform. I could be alone a lot and my family would not worry over the fact that I spent entire nights on the roof of the house, peering through a telescope and dreaming my dreams, my starry dreams.
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Even that hobby came to a close abruptly one day, when the Soviets launched the world’s first artificial satellite and suddenly everybody wanted to become an astronaut or a star expert. Since loners have to have their own personal hobbies, hobbies that no one else they know is involved in, the skies suddenly lost their appeal as career fodder.
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I faced the fact that I didn’t want to be an astronomer anyhow. Facts and physics left me cold. What I really enjoyed about the heavens was their accessibility to the poet within me. I didn’t want anyone to require a mathematical formula of me. I just wanted to enjoy the enormous, awesome feelings that came over me when I looked skyward, and I wanted to share these feelings with others.
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Years later, I actually went to a meeting of amateur astronomers and found that they spent little time looking at stars, but much time doing calculations and explaining black holes to each other, and theorizing about the death of the cosmos.
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Sara Teasdale would not have approved, thank goodness. Do you know her poem, the one that best expresses that wonderful feeling the stars can give you if you open up to them? May I share it with you?
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This is my favorite poem:
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Alone in the night
On a dark hill
With pines around me
Spicy and still
And a heaven full of stars
Over my head
White and topaz and misty red
Myriads with beating hearts of fire
That eons cannot vex or tire.
Up the dome of heaven
Like a great hill
I watch them marching
Stately and still
And I know that I
Am honored to be
Witness of so much majesty.
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Sara knew. Sara knew me. Sara knew all about the childhood me. Through the distance of time, through the timelessness of distance, she still holds my hand and Knows.
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I hope your dreamy memories of Christmastime stars are as healing as mine. Get ready. The 25th is just a few days thataway
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© 2022 A.D. by Jim Reed
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