i once differentiated between worlds… between something so-called normal, and something other like magical i knew the difference between the everyday world and the extraordinary world between fact and fiction between reality and fantasy but then… you came into my life you came dancing, spinning and singing, and yes… turning turning everything upside down, and inside out like the rabbit on the moon you made me see anew the extraordinary in the everyday the fiction in fact fantasy in reality and now… every day is magical with you in my life magical is everything, and is my one world and is my new normal with you
“You don’t need to believe in magic. You are magic. Believe in yourself.”
Emmanuel Dagher
The above quote crossed my path the other day, like an unexpected butterfly or rainbow in the sky. Riveted, I stopped. “Yes!” I thought. “We are indeed magic, and if we just believed in ourselves… no—if we truly knew that we are magic, why anything wonderful, miraculous, and beautiful could be possible!” It is true, don’t you think? That if we arrive, if we show up each day simply as we are—unadorned, messy but real… unafraid to be whatever particular expression of life that we just so happen to be—then our days cannot be anything other than magic and magical. So I was inspired to step out of my personal comfort zone and share this quickly snapped, unfiltered, messy-haired selfie-on-a-whim… to say hello to the world and to you, whoever you may be. We are all, after all, one light and one love.
But, what precisely is magic?
magic
maybe magic is,
a heart cracked open
to the tender beauty of the world
to be
raw open and real
and tumbled like broken pieces of sea glass
worn smooth with the grain of tides
high and low
of time
to be
to just be
in this one world
both wounded and wondrous
allowing the soft edges of shadows
to dance
into the light
like sparkles and glitter of rain
in the sun
and finally
finally and at last
to stand on the shore
with arms outstretched to the wide open sea
and declare
here i am my love
here i am
Kyoto Coffee
flowers startle white
in the black night
caffeine-steeped and camouflaged in
e l e g a n c e
i awaken
all enchanted
the wild blossoms are singing
light into new day.
I wrote the original version of this poem about three years ago, after enjoying coffee in an elegant cup at a café in Kyoto. After a long talk with a good friend, the night was late and I cycled back to my small, secluded-away in a quiet and dimly-lit neighborhood near ancient temple grounds in Higashiyama, house. Along the way, I was startled to encounter these white flowers glowing out of the darkness—similar to the white flower on my black coffee cup just a short while earlier. What magic potion had I just consumed, I pondered, in the guise of an elegant Kyoto cup of coffee? Little did I know then, just how truly magical and extraordinary our worlds can be. And I was entirely guileless as to the adventure I’d unknowingly embarked upon. But here I am now, three years later, still traversing these caffeine-steeped nights of enchantment. And what has emerged? Worlds of poetry, beauty, magic, and a precious love—like no other.
So what it the moral of the story? Surrender to the irrational demands of your heart and of beauty, to this wild world far too vast to be contained within the narrow confines of our minds. And something more magical than you could have ever dreamed of will welcome you, on the other side of night.
Michiru Adrienne 