I was about 11 years old when I came to realize there was no such thing as magic. I was part of Pioneer Boys at the local Pentecostal Church and they had brought in a magician to entertain the children one evening. I expect he was called an illusionist because of magic was evil whereas illusions were not.

At any rate I was called up at one point to assist in a trick in which the magician was going to pass a handkerchief through my wrist. I was intrigued. I had no doubt he would do it I just was not sure how. As it turns out he simply took an end of the handkerchief in each hand and proceeded to rapidly bring the outstretched cloth down toward my wrist. When it touched my wrist the magician let go of one end briefly and managed to grab it again just beneath my wrist.

I can only assume mine were not the sole preconceptions shattered that day save perhaps for a near-sighted child in the back row.

What an incredible disappointment. I remember the empty feeling after the performance. Of course you never shared these feelings with anyone. As a child it was simply recorded, reacted to and relegated to a dark corner of the mind.

Sometimes I wonder if growing up is essentially the gradual but increasing awareness that there is no such thing as magic. That the incredible is simply the ordinary in disguise.

Of course there is a great deal of arrogance in such an assumption but then no one ever claimed humanity was the picture of humility. As with nearly everything we base our impressions of the world on our experience. I decided at 11 that there was no such thing as magic based on one moment with a poor illusionist. It seems silly now that I think about it.

In how many myriad ways do we define the world, the universe and each other based solely upon our infinitesimal experience? In the grand scheme of things we are in no position to decide anything absolutely.

In a universe that is 14 billion years old (or six thousand depending upon where you learned Geology) on a planet where the average human lifespan ranges from 32 years in Swaziland to 82 years in Japan we simply do not have enough information or experience do decide pretty much anything…

…and so I suppose I will hold out hope for magic; Hope that it is out there somewhere cohabiting with the miraculous.

After all who am I to say what is and is not?