Glimpses of Magic

"To inhabit was the most natural joy when I was still livinginside; all was garden and I had notlost the way in." Helene Cixous

This afternoon I witnessed the precise moment of enchantment whenthe rain became snow. I had taken shelter in the doorway of a city shop, and Iwas watching the sky as droplets thickened and whitened and turned to featheredflakes, and it was magic.

Soon enough the advent of sleety snow and chilly temperaturesmeant nothing more than being wet and cold and miserable, but there was thatwindow of wonder while it lasted, and a little bit is clinging to mestill.

Yesterday I revisited scenes from my childhood. First we went toProspect Park, a place where my siblings and I spent many happyhours. It’s funny how familiar little details were: the hexagonal pavers of thepathways, the sturdy stone fountains, the bridge beneath which we always pausedto sing and shout and hear our voices echo.

There was the Soldiers’ andSailors’ Arch at Grand Army Plaza –– Brooklyn’s own Arc de Triomphe -- and what weused to call The Pancake Building at 47 Plaza Street West -- Brooklyn’s ownFlatiron Building -- designed by Sicilian architect Rosario Candela. There wasthe marble gazebo with its beautiful tiled ceiling, and within the park, green pasturesand winding tree-lined paths. It was nice to see my daughter there in the placethat was once so dear to me.

In the southeast corner of the Plaza is the Brooklyn PublicLibrary, a building shaped like an open book, with sculpted gold figures on either side and these beautiful words above the entrance: Here are enshrined the longing of great hearts and noble thingsthat tower above the tide, the magic word that winged wonder starts, thegarnered wisdom that never dies.

A block or so further, we passed the Botanical Garden, one of myfavorite places anywhere, and then, the Brooklyn Museum, where my sister andI used to love looking at the rooms from different historical periods in whichwe would imagine ourselves living. (On this day we went to an exhibition called Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic Exhibit, 1955 to the Present, worth a ponder.)

We walked back to the apartment in Park Slope where Miranda wasstaying, past elegant old buildings, lamplight shining from windows, a glimpseof a woman reading in a room, a sense of something quietly wondrous in the gathering dusk.I was remembering my brother and sister, aching for days that hadhappened long ago but here...when all was garden, and I had not lost the way in.  But I loved coming back with Monte and Miranda.

And I still recognize magic: it comes in flickers and cannot be paused; it is asweetness that leads into longing, and there you are left… but a sweetness.