“You don’t need to understand,” I said, smiling into his young face. “Understanding life isn’t what matters. All you really need to know is that there’s an explanation for everything. Whether or not your understand, or even recognize the explanation, it’s still there.”
“But you understand everything!” he said, scrunching his face into a question mark. “How did you get so smart?”
“Oh, I don’t know much at all,” I smiled, shaking my head. “Just like you, I learned to put away my questions a long time ago go make myself feel safe in the world. Then,” I tapped my hand against my heart, “in here I learned that nothing can be understood in only one way for very long, because magic is always at work. Magic has the ability to transform anything in life – anything – from what we originally thought it to be, into something quite different.”
His mouth gaped as he listened to this grown man speak of something as childlike as magic.
“It’s true,” I said. “You don’t need to try too hard to understand something. Because when the magic is finished, it will be so clear, so obvious what the something is, you will not even
need to think about it at all.”
“But why do the others not see the magic? Even after so many years of trying?”
“Because,” I answered, remembering the sad truth of so many years of my own lost innocence, “because they are so busy telling themselves the magic is not real, that they don’t see it working. I promise you though, there is only one thing you really need to understand about life. If you don’t like something, just wait. Wait for the magic to arrive to change what you don’t like. And if the magic doesn’t seem to be arriving, shout for it to come sooner. Remind it that you are waiting. Set a place for magic at your dinner every night and wait. It will arrive. This is all you need to know.”
