“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”
~W.B. Yeats

Walking around the lake last week, I was taking in all the many wildflowers that just show up and strut their stuff in some of the most unsuspected places. These July days are filled to overflowing with a riot of color everywhere you look. And yet it wasn’t the color that drew my eye, but the simple, white elegance of the Queen Anne’s Lace that seemed to nestle in between the blooms of yellow and purple and pink. This wildflower can be found in fields and along bodies of water in both city and countryside providing the counterpoint to the colors of summer. It is a simple flower. Understated. Beautiful.

But Queen Anne’s Lace has always been a flower that is special to me and carries a wonderful memory of my Mother.. I can’t remember how old I was. It was definitely summer and we had been out walking in a field somewhere. As we walked, my Mother picked some of these flowers and we carried them back to our house. I likely thought she would put them in a jar for our kitchen table. But she instead proceeded to fill some kitchen glasses with a little bit of water. Into the water she dropped food coloring, the same tiny bottles with their teardrop tops that usually only came out at Christmas cookie baking time. She then placed a stem of Queen Anne’s Lace into each glass. “Watch this.” she said. 

I remember the feeling of staring as these flowers turned from white to blue or yellow or pink as the food coloring made its way up the stem and into the delicate petals. It was then that I knew that my Mother was magic. I knew I loved her and that she had always done amazing things to care for me and our family. But this was the moment she was lifted up to something much higher. My Mother was magic! I can’t remember how long those flowers remained in their glasses or how long I marveled at my Mother’s brilliance but, so many years later, I still have a nearly visceral experience of what happened in our kitchen that afternoon. 

Magic. The Irish poet, Yeats, reminds us that ‘the world is full of magic things’. And it is, of course, true. Sights and experiences that boggle our minds and cause us to see things in an entirely new and fresh way are around every corner. We rarely call those moments ‘magic’ but we might do well do so, don’t you think?. And after the year we have just experienced, couldn’t we all do with a little dose of magic? I tend to believe that children are more attuned to being witness to magic. It is what draws them to fairy tales and stories where what might seem impossible really does happen.Yeats reminds us that this ability to see magic is within all our reach as we hone our senses and allow our eyes, ears, fingertips, tongues and noses to be present to what is already there. 

It would be one of my deepest wishes to be so attuned that the magic of the everyday would make an appearance. How about you? What magic have you seen lately? What kind of magical moments have walked into your life? Summer…at least in Minnesota…is a time to be on the look out for that ever-present magic. Queen Anne’s Lace in its simple form carries its own magic. The birds in all their variety eating from the same feeder remind us of the magic of diversity and of co-existing. The tree or flower planted by a seed dropped from a winged or four legged creature that now has its own claim in the garden. Then there are fireflies, fields alight with the flickering of insects. All a kind of magic.

My Mother was most known for the magic she created in the kitchen especially baking pies. Her hands and the recipes she held in her head allowed her to create magic with the simple ingredients of flour, fat, salt and water. Into these crusts she would pour fruit or fillings that were infused with sugary sweetness and, mostly, love. 

In a few weeks my Mother will have been gone from us for a year. I still find myself thinking I will call to tell her about something I saw or read during my day. The Magic Makers stay with us through all they helped us see, all the ways they helped us grow. For this, I am grateful.