magic anticipated

Tuesday felt like Christmas Eve, the way it has always felt since my childhood, and hopefully how it will always feel long past when I am dead. The feeling is that of anticipation. It is not the anticipation of presents or of food but of magic. There is not any emotion that is quite like the anticipation of magic. The restless night before the first day of kindergarten, the slow-passing hours before a day at Disneyland, the butterflies that dance intricate waltzes in your stomach just to say, Tomorrow! This joy and fear are enough to make life real for you, testifying that you had not lived until this moment of squirming hope, and that you will likely die if the magic doesn't come soon. Oh how hard waiting becomes at those times! Sleep is the best way to pass the hours, because then you cannot count them. However, few can sleep when the halo of anticipated magic hangs around them. The glow is too bright and too beckoning. Even dreams pale in comparison to the simple splendors of waking the next morning.

I remember from when I was little opening my eyes in the gray light before dawn, blinking away the mundane from my eyes, and suddenly having my stomach give a whoosh as I recalled with vividness the magic waiting for me just outside my room. Every fearsome and flighty word I knew leaped to my brain to try to describe to my heart just what lay out in a day run by magic: elves and oliphants, wrapping paper and evergreens, a word that sounds like "pomplemoose", cocoa and Mom (mom encompasses so much magic herself, that the only word to capture all those sensations--the way her hands stroked my hair, the voices she used when reading aloud of dwarves and wizards, the smile she had that she reserved just for special occasions--is 'Mom').

These feelings of radiance attended my sleep Tuesday night and forced me to wake before my alarm Wednesday morning. Not really fair of course, since in this instance the magic wasn't due the moment I woke, but a whole twelve hours later. It is lucky for me, and perhaps for all who know me, that the magic kept all her promises over the next three days.

I felt well rewarded by her enchantments, especially surprised and pleased by the charms of the Denver airport. Other times I felt swallowed by time himself and what I experienced is mine only. But in Denver I saw, touched, heard, smelled and tasted outside of myself. It is the first time I noticed how bewitching the airport is. Of course, this is the first time I explored it during my layover instead of sitting self-contained at my gate. I walked with a quick but heedless pace up and down the length of terminal B, absorbing sensations real and imagined. I felt the grainy texture of the hand rail pass under my fingers, swiftly turning them black, as I meandered on the automatic sidewalks. As I stepped, I pretended my feet sunk tiltingly into uneven surfaces of sand and grass, afterward hopping off the walkway as it came to its end. The sensual aromas wafting from the chocolate factory smoothly replaced the scent of salted popcorn just a few feet before. Children screamed and giggled and somewhere someone sang. Shops of crisp books followed boutiques with dresses made of rose-tinted copper.

On my third trip around I only watched the people. An old man with a cane and liver spots aimlessly walked the terminal too, graciously allowing me to pass him whenever our circuits met. He reached a hand to his brow to tip the hat that wasn't there. Probably his hat used to be red but had faded to a rough pink from sun exposure at countless ball games. I smiled and walked on. A young boy shuffled backward against the rhythm of the moving sidewalk, not in a hurry to get anywhere, rather enjoying his stagnation, unlike his frazzled young mother who watched the other children too small to amuse themselves in an airport. An old woman brought to her husband his favorite snack of honey roasted peanuts before seating herself, feet tucked up on the chair, next to him. They held gnarled hands as they read. Families, couples, wanderers, all with their own measure of romance and magic. I felt connected to them all as I traipsed through their midst and as they began to cast an eye toward me, watching the odd girl who looked happily lost walking the terminal again.

This was magic experienced.

Yet, when I boarded my flight and my plane left the ground, my stomach once more gave that whoosh that said something greater still waited at the other end of my journey.