ALL KINDS OF MAGIC

Today, I share a little shameless Yahoo with a couple of super-cool magic-imbued things that have happened on account of my novel being out in the world. And then a story about encountering magic on the streets of New York.

I’ve been having fun reading and chatting at bookstores in Bayfield and Ottawa, and last week I was invited to the Chippewas of Rama First Nations library to chat with the ridiculously modest Danielle BigCanoe. My son, Ben, who works with many of those who showed up, introduced me and did his best to rectify my weird livestream setup.

The next in-person event is The Kawartha Lakes Book Festival in Lindsay on Saturday, October 26.

The other evening I enjoyed a rollicking conversation with Jason Emde for his podcast, Writers Read Their Early Shit. He did this cool thing of reading a piece of prose before introducing me. As I listened, I thought, Gosh that sounds familiar. Turns out he’d pulled it from one of my Substack posts. What a strange sensation to hear your own words sound at once fresh and familiar. We spoke of how every event in life is gold to a young writer but without a solid knowledge of craft, we end up with painfully prosaic or pretentious prose and poetry. We spoke at length about our shared love of Leonard Cohen. And laughed a lot. He’s a wonderfully engaging and chill host and I’d chat with him anytime (although since he’s in Japan, it takes a little time-wrangling.) That episode should air on October 1.

On Tuesday morning, right after Pyjama Writing with Sue Reynolds and thirty marvellous writers, I received a Foreword review of What the Living Do. If I’d been wearing socks, they would have blown clear off. You can read it here.

As if that wasn’t enough to send me dancing through the house in the pyjamas I was still wearing, I received notice that the book is a finalist for The Canadian Bookclub Awards. O.M.G.

So, just for fun, I’d like to share Ada Limon’s wonderful poem:

Instructions on Not Giving Up

– Ada Limón

More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees
that really gets to me. When all the shock of white
and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living despite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,
I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.

Photo by Julius Drost on Unsplash

Magic at Hand

He may have been there on Fifth Avenue believing there’d be more money than, say, Seventh Avenue. In 1982, I had five dollars to give him. But since he waved anyone away who attempted to drop coins on the sidewalk, I waited until it was finished. When he spoke at last.

He was handsome in the way young men are in their late twenties—slender, thick dark hair with a subtle wave, eyes without guile. Black shirt (not a T-shirt but a pressed button-down shirt), black jeans. I wore brown thin-wale corduroy pants, a cream, cotton blouse with a diagonal closure, and my mother’s tweed hacking jacket. I’d come with my friend who knew New York. She’d ordered us an 02 room at the Algonquin because those rooms were corner rooms and had more space. I imagined Dorothy on that bed in that room on the ninth floor and jotted down quotes I might use should the occasion arise. The room was $135. a night, but it was worth it. Tony, the doorman, knew my friend by name. That morning, she was in negotiations with booking agents, and busy promoting the next big thing in stand-up comedy. (If I tell you who that comic was, you’ll forget about the magician on Fifth Avenue, so you may have to wait for another post to find out.)

I was on the loose.

I wheeled off 44^th onto 5^th. New York City, here I come.

It could have been coloured scarves or silver hoops. It wasn’t what his hands were doing; it was the tender hook of his eyes.

In those days, I had few worries. My perm was growing in nicely—soft waves had replaced the double-rod fiasco. I was single, had a decent job, and lived in an affordable apartment in a vibrant neighbourhood.

I could buy some shoes. Or slowly make my way to the big park I’d only seen in films. For now, though, I stood on the famous Fifth Avenue, buffeted by bodies, clearly important bodies on urgent missions, while the man in the black shirt and pants, his back to a 5^th Avenue shop window, set his smoky eyes on me.

It had already begun. Others may have stopped then to watch. Later, I noticed them, when they stepped forward to let go of bills and coins. He’d been waiting. For me, that much was clear. He bowed to me, his eyes an autumn of falling leaves, and opened his trunk. At each beginning, he told me, This one, this one, too, is just for you. There may have been a child, a girl, perhaps eight or seven years old, who pierced the balloon he held out to her, a balloon that would not pop. There were ropes and scarves and sudden coins, and for me, a large white tissue. The warmth of his hands as he took mine to demonstrate how to hold the tissue. Then the flame, fire in my hands. In a flash, he pressed the burning tissue into my hand. I yelped and jumped back, but his hands clasped mine closed.

One by one, he opened my fingers, exposing my clean palm. No ash. No welt. No trace of paper. He laid his palm where it should have been charred and stepped back.

I learned then, you can have fire and not be burned.

You might be tempted to inform me that these sorts of manoeuvres are tricks and not “magic.” Because magic as such doesn’t exist and so on. I’m here to tell you —because I was there to feel it—magic is.

But that magic did end. Suddenly I was a woman in her mid-twenties on a Fifth Avenue sidewalk, a five-dollar bill sweating in my fist dug into my pocket. People were clapping, dipping forward to toss coins and bills into an upturned hat. The man in black was speaking words. Thank you… honoured…only if you enjoyed…Noise was everywhere but my ears were birds. The world was stuffed with sound I couldn’t hear. I needed to fly and I ached to stay. He was smiling, smiling that known smile, a smile that spoke and remembered and knew.

It was a busy sidewalk in New York, a Wednesday or a Tuesday. I pulled my feet up from the roots they’d grown, disengaged my hand from my pocket, and let the damp bill fall into his hat.

A father and daughter may have been asking questions of my magic man. When I turned, my heel stuck then unstuck, and I was walking away. I would find a bar because I was still burning and morning sun was in my eyes, and I needed many drinks. I could buy some shoes.

His voice caught up with me. The voice said, “You’re not leaving?” Or it may have said, “Where are you going?”

His astonished face when I turned back. His impossibly kind eyes. I picture the ruefulness of my smile as I raise my hand in farewell.

And so ended our brief, magical affair. But for a moment, I had held fire in my hand and not been burned.

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Thank you for reading about my experiences with magic in its disparate forms. I’d love to hear your magic stories, whatever your relation to it.

And don’t forget May in Spain. Three places remain. Shall I put your name on one?