people watching and spell casting

a diary entry

I wonder if there’s enough magic left in me. I used to have so much of it that I would braid it back to keep it out of the way. I close my eyes and remember a time when the world felt big, swollen with promise, but the older you get, the easier it is to shrink those feelings down.

I keep asking the question of who am I without this sense of longing? Even in moments of perfect tranquility, there must be some kind of deep want. I think I want a lot out of life, and I want a lot from myself, but I don’t want a lot from others. My vision of a perfect life is more about the balance of my personal powers that be than it is about perfect people.

I love watching people, though. I’m more content to observe others than join them. Sometimes that’s true. Sometimes I watch something so intrinsically human that I start to cry. A father bending down to his son’s height as they point and watch the train roll in. A couple so in love that their eyes appear linked by magnets. In these moments, I wish so badly that it could be me. Not to become those people, but to have those feelings. I want to try them on like sweaters and collect every shade of human experience.

I can see life widening and deepening in front of me, the older I get. Possibilities and opportunities populate the horizon, various checkpoints I need to make to be fulfilled according to society. What am I doing to be fulfilled according to self? I make coffee slowly. I push my body to break into a sprint on a warm day. I have five favorite pens, and I bring them to the cafe on a free afternoon. I tell myself I am as solid as I am liquid, present and unconstrained. I can do all of these things for myself because I’ve reflected on the me that came before. I’ve prayed at my altar and asked myself for a sign.

It goes something like this: beg your teenage self for forgiveness, for becoming even-keeled and mild-mannered. Atone for your corporate job and the nights spent safely in bed. She will forgive you for choosing stability. Tell your childhood self she has nothing to be scared of. When she gets lost in herself, she is actually finding something significant. Tell her the thing that will scare her most as an adult is staying the same.

While home for Easter, I found a box of my things in my parents’ attic. There were birthday cards, pictures with classmates, and short stories I’d written in the second grade. I was always excited by the idea of making things. Deeper in the box, there were folders from high school. Certificates that I had made the honor roll, and then letters stating I needed intervention in the classroom and was having trouble focusing. It was a chronological timeline of every peak and valley I’d hit from pre-school to 12th grade.

It’s strange to see yourself reflected in a box of papers. It was sort of like an autopsy report of my childhood.

Julianna is a pleasure to have in class. Julianna excels at writing and enjoys participating in discussions. Julianna needs extra test time and has poor organizational skills. Check all that apply: Depression, anxiety, nervousness, headaches.

Right now, I’m far from the attic. I’m sitting on the porch and looking out to the ocean and wondering if it its too cold to throw my body into it. I started the morning with a stretch and put cold cream into hot coffee, and that will be my ritual of the day. Maybe every day I should take one ordinary thing and anoint it. Deem it sacred and it is.

Magic doesn’t leave the body, you just need to know how to wake it up.

xo, Julianna