Open To Magic

Last week, on a particularly hectic day, I paid $18 for a salad I was craving and was given #18 to pick up my order."Lucky day," said the woman ringing me up."Oh, why, is today the 18th?" I asked, completely clueless about the current calendar."No. Just $18 for your food and number 18 for your order."---Earlier in the week, I was pretty exhausted walking into a meeting with a studio manager only to find that every room in his studio was named after a book. The first room was The Phantom Tollbooth, one of my favorite novels as a kid. We had a wonderful conversation about reading. He said that the thread between the books he chose was that they all dealt with "exile and return". When I shared I'd just read The Secret History, he said it was one of his favorite books, and he'd just finished The Goldfinch by the same author. On my way out, he handed me a salted caramelI felt like the whole experience was a serendipitous dream. It's silly, but when random interactions with strangers happen like that, I think of it as the Universe winking at me. Well, yes, things can improve from a conversation and a piece of candy. And it may very well be my lucky day.---Work is just bananas right now and there doesn't seem to be an end in sight. Yesterday, I had meetings from 8:30am until 1:30pm and then still had my actual job to do, which I ended up working on late into the evening. Today is starts over again.But I'm holding onto little moments of magic like these from last week. I'm looking for them, open to them, relying on them to keep me grounded during this turbulent time.A number that keeps showing up. A song that keeps following me around. An encouraging Facebook message from a friend. A quick chat with a barrister. A piece of salted caramel to savor.Yes. All of these little magical occurrences bring me back to the present, and in turn, bring me back to myself.