A few days ago I visited my longest-time dear friend, who lives in Sausalito, California. Since our first meeting in Mrs. Silva‘s Spanish I class at Burroughs High School, in Burbank, we have never lost touch. I believe we were chosen to be sisters. Thus, we always have dynamic visits sharing laughs and tears over our important events.
When I left to catch an Uber, I giggled at the vehicle still parked in front of her hillside home overlooking the bay. There stood a very old London taxicab in the same spot it has occupied for decades. The neighbors are sufficiently pleased with its presence that they petitioned the city to allow it to remain in its whimsical location. Someone had pasted a message under the passenger window, “in pursuit of magic.” While feeling warm about this obvious endorsement of a memory-filled vehicle, I thought that it accurately described the nature of both of our long lives.
Always risking sentimentality, I prefer to think of my longevity as aided by the many magical experiences, incidents, and friends and family I have known. It was “magic” when I was adopted by a deeply loving mother and father, who saw me through severe asthma (I was bedridden for my whole third-grade year), and encouraged me in my early volunteering and travel even to then-considered faraway and perhaps dangerous countries, and always were thrilled with what accomplishments I enjoyed. They also tolerated my sometimes-poor choices in romance but gave me a consistent sense of gratitude for each other and for even the difficult days we live.
Of course, I was tasked with many incidents of sadness and fear, but somehow my family’s influence allowed me to recover, sometime poorly but also occasionally well. Maturity with a sese of joy only happens because we overcome the difficult incidents, attempts, and people during our time on earth. I am somewhat surprised that I do feel content with my splotchy life, one I never imagined with its disappointments and also amazing joys. I didn’t have the life-long deeply loved and respected marriage I thought was my goal but survived this unfulfilled dream by meeting so many new people around the world, finding fascinating women and, yes, men, during my adventures through the main years of my maturity.
I didn’t get a Ph.D. and become a professor in an exciting small college, perhaps in New England, nor did I attend the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in England, then a dream of mine. Instead, I studied at UCLA to become an English teacher, a profession I loved. I have pursued, and found, magic through that choice.
However, I have since enjoyed other miracles: being accepted by my birth mother’s family, just a few years ago, treasuring my own motherhood, my daughters who have always been sources of joy, even now in their maturity, the creative projects I have tried, books, movies, theaters, occasional romances, lovely friends, and more than I could have expected of a beautiful life. Thanks for the pursuit of magic.
