Thanks to the success of Harry Potter, the world has been inundated with children flying around on brooms, black capes fluttering in the wind. Maybe it’s just my imagination, but the number of seven-year-olds waving wands around and proclaiming some unintelligible command seems to grow each Halloween. Witches, wizards, and sorcerers/sorceresses are not, of course, recent inventions. The concept that humans have the ability to transform experience beyond the norms of everyday perception is likely as ancient as humanity itself. Throughout the ages, alchemical magic (not the sleight-of-hand kind you can literally buy in a box) has often been reserved for the margins of society, sometimes to the point of prosecution.
Lucky for us parents, we get to enjoy the most prolific of magicians – our kids.
Real magic doesn’t need to be spoken in a strange tongue or accompanied by a ritualistic gesture, though magical traditions have used those tools as a means of enchantment. And true magicians aren’t interested in transforming material from one substance to another for personal gain. I’m talking about the magic that changes a bad mood into a good one, the process of causing lead to transcend its nature to become gold, literally and figuratively.
Children, particularly infants, are adept magicians. With a glance, they can melt our hearts and wash away the day, transporting us to an inviting land where everything is brighter and more meaningful. What parent hasn’t fallen under the spell of a six-month-old’s coos? A piercing scream in the middle of the night – which can transform us from a sleeping giant into a hair-pulling seeker of all things comforting – is probably a better example of the enchanting power of our children. The funny thing is, they don’t try do it. They just do.
Part of their success at beguiling us, of course, is our own willingness. I never thought I could spend hours watching anyone sleep, but I found myself doing just when my first son was born. Yesterday, I stared into my younger son’s eyes and felt a flutter in my chest. Time stopped. He didn’t turn me into an ogre or wolf, thank goodness, but he might as well have, because I was putty in his hands.
And he wasn’t even wearing a funny hat.
Image: Microsoft
