Chapter Two

There's magic everywhere, even (or perhaps especially) in ordinary events. Chances are, if you're reading this book you have at least some understanding of what I'm talking about.

Like when a grandfather clock strikes twelve times at midnight in an old, familar house, extra points if it's your grandparents' house on Christmas Eve.

Like turning your key in the lock of your front door, knowing beyond the possibility of any doubt that it's home and that you belong there and always will.

Like going to the library on a rainy Sunday, reading in a comfortable chair or browsing the shelves or just hanging out with friends and watching the raindrops slide down the windowpanes and hearing them collide with the tiles on the roof.

Like that hazy place somewhere in between wakefulness and falling asleep.

Like reading in your bedroom by candlelight, or under the covers by flashlight, feeling as though the entire world has ceased to exist save you and the story.

Like writing to strangers on the Internet, and knowing that your words will finally be truly heard and, you hope, understood and appreciated.

Like escaping into another world (metaphorically or literally) through a book or a song or a movie or a play or a painting or a walk in the woods.

There is a side to me, when I'm in one of my fanciful moods, where I believe wholeheartedly that everything in my world is touched by magic. There is another mood of mine where I feel too sensible for magic, too practical and reasonable to believe in anything at all other than hard work and the rewards it is supposed to bring. I'm sure there are millions and millions of moods in between these two, so maybe another example of everyday magic is the human mind.

Maybe ennumerating and analyzing these examples of everyday commonplace magic takes the magic out of them and renders them merely everyday and commonplace.

Maybe it does the exact opposite, making the magic easier to see and appreciate instead of seeing it as 'random good things' that can all too easily be taken for granted.

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I recommend a book for you, as I will probably do in most chapters of this book.

Dash and Lily's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan. Another example of a story about books and magic. Also a good holiday read. There's a passage where a character remarks that he didn't know that he knew these things until he had a red notebook to write them in and someone to write them to. Maybe this will be my red notebook. If it is, I dare you to find and read it.

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Like looking up at the stars on a clear night.

Like re-watching your favourite TV show for the upteenth time, just to see your favourite old familar characters do their old familiar things, or re-reading an old favourite book just to exist in that world a little bit longer. Like doing that and noticing something new amidst the nostalgia.

Like a good, strong cup of tea on a cold, bitter day.

Like lightly falling snow.

Like the smell of spring.

Like a crackling fire.

Like reading Greek mythology.

Like a used bookstore (a used-book store?)

Like sentences with ambiguous meanings (see above).

Like a crisp, cool autumn day.

Like making things.

Like learning something new.

Like being different and not minding.

Like being alone and not caring.

Like the smell of the sea.

Like a perfectly preserved good childhood memory.

Like a warm sweater.

Like a long drive with the perfect stock of CDs.

Like crossing the last item off a to-do list, or leaving something unfinished.

Like the book version of the mini-scene after the credits of a movie.