Mundane Magic

Why did only two wine glasses match? Wasn't there a set of six? Yes, there are three and they are all green, but not the same green and why only three? How do items just disappear? 

She wondered these things often. How when you think you are paying attention to things do they just vanish?  Maybe life is magical and we just don't know it. But unlike magic for show, the worldly magic makes many things disappear but never reappear. One day you have six matching glasses and then you have two and maybe you remember breaking one, but then where are the other three? 

It's the same with people.  One day your life is filled with friends and family and then suddenly you look around and there are very few of you left. Some by attrition and others by death, but still, how did it happen? You were paying attention, or so you thought but the mind is a tricky thing. You believe you are watching and seeing what is real, but then poof, they are gone and you are surprised. 

Magic is fascinating. It bends the mind. Suspends belief. Reorders the obvious. Each of us does this daily and we don't even know we are doing it. Performing magic with the mundane. Creating illusion out of inattention.  

Don't look away or you'll miss the trick and you won't know where it's gone. Life disappearing into thin air. 

 Maybe it's time to give up wine.

From: Words and Pictures, Pictures and Words by Heather Cronrath and Patty Kaufman