Where’s the Christmas Magic?

Personal reinvention is at times exhilarating and at times exhausting.  Lately I’ve really felt tested.  I almost feel the Universe looking down on me, questioning, whether in the face of adversity, I’ll remain positive, in the flow, and committed to living with the cowgirl spirit, or whether I’ll crack, give up and go back to my old way of life.  I’ve been working on some entrepreneurial endeavors for the past eight months.  They are things into which I’ve thrown massive amounts of conviction and heart.  Things that, if they take off, could be both financially and intellectually rewarding, while also allowing me the means to continue with my journey of seeking shama through my writing.  The problem is, the entrepreneurial road has had many detours.  The minute I feel I can push cruise control and sit back and enjoy the ride, another road block pops up.  That, combined with the fact that I’m often not in the driver’s seat, leaves me feeling quite helpless.

Last week I found myself emphatically saying to a friend, “I need to drum up some Christmas magic.  Where is the Christmas magic?!”

I obsessed about this question all weekend.  Then I obsessed wondering whether it was wrong to ask the Universe to throw me a bone?  Was it wrong to seek a sprinkling of Christmas magic?  Was it wrong to wonder why things are often so bone crushing difficult for even the best intentioned?  When I woke Monday morning I laid in bed staring at the ceiling thinking that I had spent too much mental energy over the weekend thinking about Christmas magic.  I convinced myself to let the question go because if I didn’t, then I was setting myself up for disappointment.  That’s when Yoda woke up and rolled on his back so I could rub his belly.  Then he turned over and bumped his nose to my mouth, which is his way of giving me a morning kiss.  His tail was thumping, his ears perked up, and he looked, err rather, STARED, at me with his big caramel colored eyes as if he had something important that he wanted me to know.

It was almost like he was saying, “Ma, I’ll show you Christmas magic.  I will I will!”

A few hours later he did just that.  I was working at my computer and happened to look outside just in time to see Yoda run to the fence to greet JC, our mailman.  JC and Yoda have a special relationship. Every day Yoda waits for him, and every day when JC walks past he gives Yoda a Milk Bone and a scratch on the head.  My heart surges each time I look up from my desk and watch them having their private daily moment.  It always makes me smile.  When I was sitting with my lopsided grin spying on Yoda and JC through the window on Monday, I realized there is Christmas magic everywhere.  And it isn’t just limited to Christmas.  JC and Yoda’s friendship is overflowing with Christmas magic every single day.

Since Monday, I’ve been seeing Christmas magic on a daily basis.  Tuesday it happened at the grocery store.  I tried to make conversation with the elderly Tibetan woman with a wrinkled face who was bagging my groceries.  It became clear that she didn’t at all understand English, so I started smiling, talking slowly and doing a futile pantomime to try to tell her that she was doing a good job.  She still didn’t understand at all, but then, something wonderful happened.  She started singing.  She sang and pointed to me while she smiled ear to ear and then she folded her hands in prayer in front of her chest while she bowed her head to me.  When she finished, in a thick accent, she said “Tibetan blessing” and again pointed to me.  My eyes welled with tears as I realized this was yet another moment of Christmas magic.

I experienced Christmas magic again when I went to pay for Princess Leia the Prius’ oil change and the Toyota service man told me there was no charge this time.  When I asked why, he shrugged, smiled, and said “just because.”

There was the Christmas magic of the ten point buck grazing across the street one morning when I was standing outside with my mug of coffee.  Its beauty and poise made me catch my breath.

Then there is my magical Christmas pea pod.  I’ve had a pea plant growing, or rather, not growing, for a couple months.  I’d finally given up on it doing anything at all, either from lack of direct sun or from lack of my green thumb.  I glanced down today at this pathetic little vine and there, struggling to be seen, was one single pea pod.  It’s tiny and slightly deformed, but it is there and I grew it.  It is yet one more example of Christmas magic.

There really is Christmas magic everywhere, in every moment, on every day of the year.  It may not be in the form that we initially want it to be, but if we let ourselves fully recognize and experience it, we’ll find it is every bit as magical in its own beautiful way.

Merry Christmas everyone!

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Tagged as: Austin, Change, Cowgirl, Texas, Yoda