desperate acts of magic

So I kind of stole this post title from the name of a low-budget film that's auditioning actors right now. I saw it in my email alerts that notify me which projects are "right" for me on a casting website and then saw that the girl they wanted to cast needs to be in her 40's (um, not me) and be able to juggle chainsaws on fire and other cool stuff like that. Also not me.

But I liked the phrase, and I opened up my blog today and couldn't think of anything to write about, as things are kind of quiet in my head today, so I figured a good title might help. How many of you guys do that? Do you ever think, if I could just have a really great title, or opening line, I could muscle through everything else? If things start out perfect, it'll do all the work itself from here on out...

Of course, life doesn't really work that way. Life is never hitting the top of a mountain and then putting it on cruise control as you sail down, windows lowered, music blasting as your hair whips around your face and you grin into the sunshine. Life is a steady, uphill climb with a sometimes crappy view, not to mention the fact that you spend about half of it studying various rocks and leaves and wondering if you haven't been in This.Exact.Place before. Many, many times before.

My life continues on with its challenges, just as it does in everyone else's. I'm very happy with my tattoo, although it's now in the itchy phase and that's driving me nuts; I'm going to be in a Steampunk-themed wedding on Saturday where I get to fulfill my lifelong dream of wearing combat boots with a dress to a wedding; and my Easter celebration with my family on Sunday was, in a word, perfect. It started off as a sort of wish-list that we all made of how we have always wanted the holiday to be: my middle older brother wanted to dye Easter eggs, my cousin wanted to have an Easter Egg hunt, I wanted to give everyone Easter baskets. So here we are, this pack of weird grown ups with messy childhoods, creating perfect memories when we are in our twenties and thirties and fifties. Life may be uphill but it doesn't mean that at any moment you can't branch off to the side and create something beautiful that you may have missed the first time around.

The problems I spoke of way back when I took a blogging break are still very present; it's just that my attitude toward them has shifted. I'm never going to have a life without problems; that's absurd and honestly, more than a little boring. So instead of whining about them I just adjusted and made room for them in my life and pushed a little more love their way. Because there isn't much that can be done to fix these kinds of problems, and lord knows I'm a fixer. I'm a first degree fixer that takes my hammer and nails to my own and everyone else's problems and hammers away until I'm exhausted and there is nothing left for me to do. And when I'm told that I can't fix it...that I can't fix someone's finances, or get someone a job, or bring someone's pet back...

or (::deep breath::) find a cure for someone's cancer...

Well. Anyways. Desperate acts of magic are in order, I suppose. And while I remain an optimist, while I believe in a universal intelligence that my particular belief system calls God, who is loving and good and kind... I'm long past thinking that the universe owes anybody anything. So the desperate acts of magic don't include me bargaining with any higher power or asking for favors. My acts of magic come from sitting down in the middle of the chaos and continuing to laugh and smile and breathe and eat cheeseburgers. It's our unbreakable, unflinching human spirit with the capacity to find joy in the smallest of things in life, even amidst the darkness, that is the real magic. And if I have a choice, which I do...

I'm gonna choose to do that one.

Someone who knows all too well what I'm going through gave me a poem last week by one of my favorite poets, Rumi. It's been folded up carefully and sitting in my back pocket for a week, giving me grace and strength when I had none left to give:

Rumi - Guest House

This being human is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all.
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

"Meet them at the door laughing" - this is what I am doing. Magic indeed.