Where's the magic?

I was eight years old when I found out Father Christmas isn’t real. I remember the moment, the sounds and smells.

The crackling notes of Christmas songs as the stylus jumped and bumped its way through the nicks and grooves of the vinyl record. The smell of freshly made mince pies and pine needles. Quiet voices and shuffling came from the sitting room as I sat on the stairs, looking through the wooden banisters.

“Where’s the sauce?”

“What sauce?”

“For the mince pies!”

“What are you talking about?!”

“Custard. You need custard with pies”

“No, you don’t!”

Muted grumbling as Dad clearly tried to chomp his way through what he, some years later, described as the reason he never encouraged Mum to bake (that and the fact a hacksaw was required to get through the 10 pounds of icing sugar she used to make the Royal Icing for my sister’s birthday cake!).

“Port?!”

“Yes, that’s what the girls wanted to give Father Christmas this year”

“Bloody Port. Next year, tell them I want Brandy”

“You tell them you want Brandy!”

“No, then they’ll know I’m Father Christmas”

“Just be grateful they didn’t give you milk!”

I have no recollection of how I reacted; I can’t even remember going back to bed. Unpicking that memory, I now know that was the night the magic died.

A month ago I celebrated my fiftieth revolution around the sun, described as such since - you know - I’m a grown up now. A few nights after my birthday, I felt a deep yearning rattling through my bones. Dramatic I know, but I’ve had this feeling before usually when I feel the need to be a creative soul. This time, the yearning brought with it a need for magic.

I don’t know what kind of magic but I suppose I’m hoping for a real, tangible magic. The wand-waving kind of magic or a bag of fairy dust or that pot of magical gold guarded so ferociously by leprechauns. I feel I must reassure you, the magic would only ever be used for good. Never bad, just good. The kind of good that makes your heart sing. The kind of magic my eight year old niece believes in; although she and I are currently locked in battle.

Her: “dragons real, unicorns not real”.

Me: (yes, actually arguing with an eight-year old) “you know unicorns can fart rainbows, right?!”

I want the kind of magic where Father Christmas is real, likes Port and gives me the gifts I actually want. The one where the Tooth Fairy rewards me for going to the dentist every year and for still having my real teeth. The kind that means I can drop my Coronavirus, perimenopausal weight with a snap of my fingers and a cheeky wink at the me in the mirror.

There are so many reasons to want magic in my life, I’m human; I’m middle-aged. I’m bored, I’m exhausted by the pain. Scared by the pandemic, lockdown after lockdown; shattered by the death of a man using his last breaths to call out for his mother. So many moments of agony that make my yearning a pounding sea of desolation.

I’m searching for the magic that reminds me that good people are real and that joy shatters the dark. The kind of magic that makes the colours of the universe pop and sparkle. I’m looking for the magic that brings calm and happiness.