Bumping into Joy
Day 10: One Month of Magic
The magic of life is the way we can feel it so immensely—crying at a pet food commercial, getting lost watching wildflowers in the wind, smelling your mother’s perfume on a stranger. Emotions remind us we are alive, swirling with wonder and sentimentality so that something as mundane as shopping for broccoli can become an exercise in self-reflection and gratitude.
Today’s poem is brought to you by me. Read “How It’s Supposed to Happy” by Kelly Grace Thomas below.
Prompt: Write about finding an emotion in an unexpected situation. How do you greet it? What does it make you think? Does it change you in some way? What does this moment teach you about the magic of your life?
One Month of Magic guidelines:
For the month of July, post a daily prompt to inspire magical thinking.
Read and respond to the prompt by writing for seven, seventeen, or seventy-seven minutes—whatever you like—exploring what it stirs inside you. That’s it. It’s easy and breezy and designed to make you consider things deeper to search for sparkle.
After you write, post your response in the comments section of that day's post (only available to paid subscribers). Offer feedback to at least two people. Celebrate and clarify what is magical about one another’s work. How it deepened your own awareness and awe.
Posts will NOT be emailed—don’t want to spam people—but they will be posted on chat. So, if you want a daily magical ping, turn the chat feature and notifications on. You can find how in your settings.
The Average Day in Costa Rica
In the coffee shop the Canadians tell me how glad they are
They left Canada. All day we do yoga on the beach together,
Then have a cup at Jose’s café. After they leave
I write and stretch and write and stretch.
Jose brings me coffee and tells me about the best burger
He’s ever cooked. How he took his time and watched it carefully juicing
Very slow. I’ll walk home at sunset when the weather is finally cool,
A man slitting the belly of a fish in the sand.
I’ll remember one night in college, the long conversation I had
With my roommate in the dorm kitchen about what we wanted
Our lives to look like. I wasn’t even thinking about this coastline then,
Or how close I was to pure joy, moving to the tropics where I have nothing,
But boiled beans and cilantro, and all this time to listen
To the little parrots in the trees, and the ocean
Continuing its long conversation with the sand, telling it about all the places
Its seen, as it massages the shoulders of the endless, warm shore.
'Parents wilt / into wildflower' Kelly, you are a goddess sometimes