Magic is the moment of intense silliness that happens when you can't figure out how you know the girl 4 feet from you when you're waiting for a table at the restaurant downstairs from your gig, and who is the girl next to her? She looks familiar too. And then two guys walk in and you think "OH! Austin Powers Stewardess, Queen Elizabeth, Dionysius, Abercrombie & Fitch Model!" And you walk over and say "Hi, I'm Superwoman." And everyone says "OOOOOHHHHH, we were trying to figure out how we knew you." Worlds colliding. That's magic.
Not as magical as today, though. Last night (or this morning at 2:00) A was helping us carry sound equipment to Mike's truck. A was M's girlfriend after me and has only relatively recently become his ex-girlfriend. She is sooooo cool. But we hadn't quite connected yet. "See you later this morning at M's brunch?" I asked. No, she was going cranberry picking north of Augusta. "Want to come along?" Yes.
Magic is driving up north with A (joined later by K) to the camp of the parents of a guy A met once, donning rubber boots, getting in canoes, canoeing across the lake and around the point, pulling the canoes out at the edge of a bog, and picking cranberries. Feeling the bog pull at your boots. Hearing the lapping of the lake. Eating a lunch of wheat, dairy and sugar (oops). Finding out that fermenting is cool and we should all get together and make kombucha sometime soon. Heading across the bog to find more berry spots ("don't step on the pitcher plants, they're endangered. They're carnivorous"). And when suddenly it seems like everywhere you want to put your free foot there's a pitcher plant? Then the berries get really good, dark red and as big as small grapes. Staying too late (it's hard to stop...) and canoeing back in the dusk. Hanging out eating chips with a host who really is magic--because he is simultaneously the most staid and the most mercurial of people. Is there anything he hasn't tried? Talking into the evening with people who like to think about things and laugh. And finally connecting.