When I was 11 years old, my family and I vacationed in San Diego. At the beginning of the trip, my parents gave each of me and my brothers some spending money for the trip. At 11, $20 was a fortune.
“Spend it wisely,” my parents would tell me.
The possibilites seemed endless.
By the end of our week in San Diego, I had $3 left. I couldn’t even remotely remember on what I spent the first $17, but I was bound and determined to spend that last $3 before we got back in the car for the long drive home. The final stop on our way out of town was Seaport Village. We had spent some time there earlier in the week, and my parents wanted to go through again as we left. I anxiously looked around for a store in which I could divest myself of this fire burning a hole in my pocket.
And then I saw it.
My life was changed forever.
Near the novelty “left handed” store where I thought I’d spend my money was a shop I hadn’t seen earlier in the week. It was a magic shop.
I wandered in and looked around. I didn’t really understand what I was looking at, but I browsed a bit before I finally approached the counter and asked the clerk what I could get for $3. He grinned and asked me to hold out my hand. In it, he placed a little foam rabbit, asked me to close my fist around it, and told me a story about how rabbits mate for life and don’t like to be away from one another and since rabbits are best known for hopping, they usually hop to reunite.
“Did you feel that?” he asked.
I didn’t know what to say. “Yes?”
“Open your hand, slowly,” he instructed me. As I did, the single foam rabbit he had so clearly and obviously placed in my hand were now TWO rabbits! I felt my heart skip. What had just happened?? Something appeared in my hand THAT WASN’T THERE MERE SECONDS AGO. I looked around the store, searching for witnesses to the rodent miracle that just occured in my hand. Did anybody else see that?? What kind of wizard is this guy??
I tried to control my excitement. I played it 11-year-old cool.
“So…that’s $3?” I asked him.
“Yes!” he affirmed.
I calmly reached into my pocket, and pulled out three wrinkled one-dollar bills. I smoothed them on the glass counter, and slid them across to him. The clerk took my damp money, reached under the counter and brought out a purple and white box with the words “Rabbits Rabbits Everywhere” printed on the lid. He put the box in a bag and handed it to me. I wanted to stay and ask him to show me how to do it, I wanted to stay and eat, sleep, and breathe in that shop, I wanted to move in there and forsake things like school and family and friends. But the only feeling I had stronger than the desire to stay was the fear that the clerk would realize his folly in sellng me this bit of sorcery for a mere 3 dollars, so as much as I wanted to stay, I high-tailed it out of there in the most nonchalant, hurried speed-walk my 11-year-old legs could muster.
That was my first experience with magic, but I think it was also my first time being inspired. I couldn’t wait to learn more, I couldn’t wait to see where this newfound knowledge would lead me. I was moved to not only learn more but at 11 I distinctly remember feeling that I also wanted to be really good at this rabbit trick too. So as much as today’s article is about my first experience with inspiration, it is also an article of gratitude for having had this experience so young. Magic has been a symbol for me over the last 23+ years of exactly that capacity for inspiration that, when all else seems lost, can be found in exacting the impossible. What began as an intrigue, grew into a hobby, and then a part-time job has now become a mechanism for ad-hoc rejuvination of belief in the seemingly impossible. Coins and cards and silks and trinkets aren’t just accouterments representative of vaudvillian tradition, they are metaphors for how, when collected in the right order, conjured with the right skill, and coaxed with that perfect mix of persuasion, inspiration can spring forth – even in a flurry of foam rabbits.
Abracadabra.
From Left to Write 