When the Magician Stops Believing in Magic

A magician never reveals their secrets.  

You’ve all heard the phrase.

A professional and seasoned magician performs some impossible and mysterious act on-stage in front of a stunned audience. You sit in awe thinking to yourself, “How on earth did they do that?” After the show the magician comes to the front of the house for a few moments to chat with fans and you decide to ask the question you’ve been dying to know the whole night.

“How’d you do it?” 

The magician looks at you with a well-worn smile, and with a slightly mischievous twinkle in their eye they tell you:

“A magician never reveals their secrets.”

That response is frustrating but at the same time it stirs up even more wonder and delight, knowing that there are in fact secrets to be withheld and kept. Suddenly you feel as though you’re a part of that secret even though you never truly got an answer, but now your imagination is swirling to life and you go home thinking and seeing differently. 

Because that was the real magic act the whole time.

I’ve gotten to know a few magicians over the years. And what I’ve come to learn is that not giving an answer to the question of, “How’d you do it?” is a better response than an actual answer. Sure, they could actually tell you how they did a trick, or how you missed their sleight of hand, but that isn’t really what you wanted to know.

You wanted to know how they made you feel a certain way. How they made you feel like a kid again. How they made you feel those warm fuzzies that you used to feel when you discovered something you loved for the first time. 

For real magic is not the tricks nor the smoke and mirrors, but the mindset. 

Magic is a mindset. 

It’s an invitation to curiosity, to reach into mystery and peak through the veil of the unknown until you brush up against something hard to describe that leaves you with chills and a voice in the back of your head saying, “There’s more to this.”

Magic is seeing the breadth of the stars on a clear night in the wilderness. Magic is that thin space you travel through on a flight at dusk where the clouds are below you and the horizon line glows as though you’ve left Earth’s atmosphere. Magic is standing on a turret in the ruins of a castle in the middle of Europe, towering mountains and a curling river stretching out in front of you.

It’s the lights dimming and the collective hush of dozens of people in a crowded theater, or that split second of time looking down the first drop of a roller coaster before it gets taken over by gravity. It’s the muffled song of cicadas and birds mixing together with the laugh of friends circled around a crackling campfire licking into the twilight sky. It’s the still and silent cold of the freshly fallen snow.

It’s when our learned monotony of the ordinary breaks and the familiar becomes unfamiliar once again.

A good magician knows that real magic has nothing to do with the flash and pizazz on stage – those are just accoutrements working to create an atmosphere that lends itself to the real star of the show; wonder. 

Wonder is a doorway to magic. A magician (hopefully) does not seek to deceive with their tricks and illusions, but to spark in their audience awe and wonder. If you cannot elicit wonder from the audience, there is no magic. And an audience won’t get there if the magician first does not believe in wonder and awe themself. 

I’ve always viewed myself as a magician. Not the stage performer kind (though there was a time when I was younger where I practiced a bunch of card tricks out on my sisters,) but the artist kind. I’m a filmmaker, so part of my job involves creating illusions and tricks that make people gasp and go, “How’d you do that?” But I also like to consider myself as a magician because I live by the perspective – not just live by but live for – the perspective that awe and wonder is the birthplace of purpose and passion. There’s literally a spot on my website that says, “I believe in magic. Do you?” Finding and creating moments of magic to keep wonder alive and well is what I do and want to do more than anything else. That’s why I became a filmmaker in the first place. 

Just ask my friends about it; I’ve had many a conversation about this topic with the ones that are willing to listen. They let me prattle on for hours about the wonder and awe and underlying existential mysteries of my favorite TV shows (ahem, Lost) and movies, as well as go into depth about the behind the scenes content. Not only that, but they’ve seen me tear up at theme parks and backlots because I don’t know how to contain myself around externalized dreams. One time I was even an actual magician because I got picked for the wand ceremony at the Ollivander’s at Universal Studios Hollywood. To this day, I’m convinced I was picked because I was the most excited kid in the room. I was 22. 

Fast forward to March of this year and along comes news of a pandemic. And then everything shuts down and everyone is ordered to stay at home. And suddenly, for the first time in my lifetime, everyone in the world is in a collective experience. 

I remember feeling a bit of tension, because of course there’s a global pandemic causing this, but at the same time I had a strange buzz of excitement about the lockdown itself. We were all thrust out of our normal lives and into something new, which can be a great incubator for wonder. 

I remember everyone taking to social media in posts mostly consisting of solidarity and new discoveries. People were finding themselves with unexpected free time, filling that with new TV shows, crafts, family time, and at one point, copious amounts of bread baking. 

Dolphins were reappearing in Venice, people were rediscovering the joy of hikes and nature, and city streets began to resemble that of a Scott Listfield painting. Neighbors shared song and dance across apartment balconies, we all found ourselves in an intimate relationship with the joy and frustration of the mute button, and it felt as though the world was remembering the value of connection and community. There was finally an opportunity to slow down, rest, and catch our breath.

And then something else unexpected happened. 

My mom died. 

I remember that week more vividly than my fractured memory should allow me to. It was a Sunday afternoon, only a week or two into shutdown, and I was lying on my bed trying to figure out what I wanted to watch that evening. My phone rang and I saw it was one of my sisters. Something felt off before I even answered; there was a pit growing in my stomach as I stared at my phone and I wasn’t sure why, but sure enough, after I said ‘hello,’ my sister was sputtering through tears that Mom had had another stroke and was in the hospital.  

And the world stood still for a second time that month.

I couldn’t think, I could only cry. I had had this fear in the back of head ever since her first stroke back in 2016, but by no means did I think there would be a complication this early on.

Instead of figuring out what show I wanted to watch that night I was now scrambling to buy a plane ticket home for the next morning. 

One thing I’ve learned as a filmmaker is how to create settings and atmospheres symbolic to a character’s inner struggle. The psychology and emotions of the main character becomes the external visualization to the story, building out the world the character travels through.

I’ve found that every now and then the universe likes to take a cue from the storytellers.

On my way back home the next day I had a layover through Chicago O’Hare International Airport. I’ve passed through this airport many times before. It’s loud, full of hustling and bustling people, constant static over the intercoms, and just generally full of life. 

But on this day it was an absolute ghost town. 

Almost every single store and restaurant was closed. Large chunks of the airport were dark, vast stretches of terminal had their lights shut off, somehow looking as though they had always been abandoned and now always would be. I passed maybe a dozen people, the sound of my own footsteps literally echoed through the solemn quietness that hung in those empty, cavernous hallways. I’ve used the concept of an empty airport to describe off-putting feelings in the past and now I can confidently say that that illustration is everything I ever made it out to be. 

There were only four passengers, including myself, on that plane back to Pennsylvania, the gray rain clouds we flew through the whole way back matching the fog that had taken up residence in my mind.

My uncle picked me up from the airport and dropped me off at the hospital, where I almost wasn’t allowed in because I had come from a different state and the strict COVID restrictions were in place. I couldn’t for the life of me remember what the name of the unit my mom was in was when the nurse asked me and was only allowed in once my sister had come down to the lobby to get me. 

We walked up to the little waiting room in the Neuro-ICU where my other sister was camped out and was immediately greeted by doctors and the OPO representative to talk through the situation and what we as the next of kin needed to do in the coming days. 

See, within a few hours of the initial phone call from my sister, we had learned the extent of the situation; the stroke had caused too much damage and my mom was brain dead. Even before I got on the plane I knew that I was coming home to say goodbye. 

It didn’t feel real even though I knew full well that it was. It felt like I was walking through a dream during those two days we were in and out of the hospital. I remember being so scared to go back to the hospital room because I didn’t want that image of my mom in my head to be the last I had of her. I remember not even feeling like what I was saying to her meant anything because I didn’t know if she could even hear me. I remember saying when they gave my sisters and I the choice between getting a text or call for the notification when final death occurred later in the week, I chose the call because I wanted to have that personal connection to a real voice, and then immediately regretting that decision when the call actually came. 

When we had exhausted all the questions and information we could get from everyone at the hospital, and when we had possibly exhausted their tissue supply, my sisters and I made the decision to leave. There was nothing more for us to do but wait for death, which we had been told by enough friends that we did not want to be there the moment it happened because it was far too hard and potent to the memory.

We took that advice.

One of our nurses (who was also named Abbey, spelled just like how I do, one of my sisters taking comfort in that) broke COVID protocol and hugged each of us as a majority of the staff stopped and watched as we walked single-file out of the Neuro-ICU, knowing what that walk meant for us.  

Both of my sisters and I had cried at the hospital but I don’t know if any of us had actually felt what was going on. Sometimes tragedies don’t feel real right away, or those feelings get pushed away until we have the appropriate quiet to break. I can’t speak to what my sisters felt, but to me, nothing felt real or permanent yet. And I’m not one who can hold back emotions very well, so I was relatively surprised at how little I had internally felt during the time at the hospital. 

After we left, before we all went home, we stopped by our uncle’s house, where my mom had been living, to grab a few things and tend to any of her mail that needed immediate attention. After a bit of small talk with my aunt and uncle, we went up to my mom’s room to collect a few things. It was odd for sure, stepping into a space frozen in time, waiting for its occupant to return not knowing they never would.

We were just about to leave when we all paused. There were flashes of colorful plushies and candy laid out next her bed. And then we saw the buckets nearby with parades of cartoon bunnies and painted eggs lining each of them.

She had been in the process of making Easter baskets for each of us. 

And that’s when I saw my sisters’ faces shift. And that’s when my stomach finally lurched. And for a moment the haze of the walking dream faded and reality stared us in the face. It was real. It actually happened. She’s not coming back. 

After a few days I returned back to Indiana and that’s when everything started to get a bit blurry. The novelty and “We’re in This Together,” mentality of the shutdown and pandemic is eroding. Hospitals were filling up, people were losing their jobs, money was running out. There’s no more excitement about this strange, new time anymore.

The whole world was grieving. It still is. The whole world suddenly had the appropriate quiet to break. But it hurts. There’s a price to pay for pretending everything is fine when it’s not. Social and political unrest is coming to a head, the weight of injustice is no longer bearable and now protests are in the streets. Sides are being drawn, lines are being crossed, and we’re all staring in the mirror at parts of ourselves we didn’t even know were there.  

In my therapy sessions, I couldn’t distinguish if my grief and lament is from my mother’s death or from watching the pages of a history book come to life all around me, or if it’s a strange combination of both. It was probably the latter but it’s hard to tell. Everything was happening all at once, parts of the world were literally on fire, and somehow I was still supposed to be going to work during this whole mess.

I oscillated between stretches of days where I did nothing but cry and lie in bed, and days where everything felt perfectly fine. Time basically ripped apart at the seams by June and absolutely nothing felt real or grounded anymore. It was like one of those montages from an old animation where the calendar pages are getting ripped off and flying by while day slowly turns to night then back to day in the background. 

Many days this year were spent sitting on the couch watching TV for hours straight because I couldn’t bring myself to do anything else. I couldn’t even find it in myself to write haphazard messy thoughts in my journal. It was all too much to process. I cried at night thinking about all the things my mom would never get to see me do. About how I wanted to show her the movies I would eventually make. About how I wanted to show her around LA and how she would have absolutely hated that city but pretended to like something about it for my sake. 

Since there were no more new memories to make, old memories that I had long since forgotten climbed out of their dormancy to the front of my brain. I would smell a dish that I used to eat as a child and be instantly transported back to my childhood home. I remembered songs and sayings that hadn’t been on my tongue for years, jokes and teases my mom used to say. I even once passed a country general store and started tearing up because it was the type of store my mom would have loved to look around in.  

I began to notice as the year went on that it was hard for me to feel anything. I was feeling numb and apathetic toward everything. I didn’t like anything. Not even the stuff I could typically talk about for hours. At the beginning of the year I was dreaming about writing scripts and taking my filmmaking skills to the next level and now just picking up a camera felt like a chore.  

I realized that all of my typical coping mechanisms weren’t possible with the pandemic. I live for, and work in, the entertainment industry, which got hit extremely hard. There were no movies being released in the theaters, there were no stage shows happening, no concerts. I couldn’t go to a theme park or hop onto an airplane and fly somewhere for change of scenery and sanctuary. I couldn’t even get a simple hug.

More than anything though this year, I noticed that I had stopped believing in magic.

It was a gradual loss, but it had slipped away. I couldn’t find it. I couldn’t feel it. Nothing felt wonderful or awe-inspiring anymore. 

Maybe a magician never reveals their secrets because there are no secrets to be told.

I was watching POV roller coaster videos and behind-the-scenes documentaries to try to feel something, anything at all. I was going on walks and trying to find new trail systems to explore until it got too cold to do so. I would take aimless car rides just listening to music or podcasts until I found myself weeping in gas station parking lots.  

My mind wasn’t even working like it normally did. Usually there are thoughts moving a million miles a minute, never shutting up, and suddenly I was struggling to connect two or three thoughts together in my head. It was so empty. I wanted to be scared about it, but I couldn’t even do that. I felt completely disconnected from everything. 

Our minds are complex things though, because as I say all this, at the same time I knew I still had that dream of writing and making films. It was still there somewhere despite feeling complete disdain when I looked at a camera or my editing software. I knew that there was a part of me deep down that was adamant about not letting that dream die when everything else in me wanted to give up. It was hanging on by a thread, but it was still there. 

And that little thread has been getting me through this year so I know there’s still magic out there. I couldn’t see it, but there was hidden magic in those nights where I drove to the middle of nowhere and screamed at the sky. There was magic in those rewatches of my favorite superhero shows that led me to a podcasting community where I’ve found new friends and the energy to write at least something each week. There was magic in leaving a job I didn’t like and starting over, starting me on the path to believe in myself once again.

I still have a long way to go. My motivation and finances have bottomed out pretty hard. I can barely sit and focus long enough to write an email, let alone a script right now. This blog post itself took me three days to write and edit, and even then my grammar may still be a mess.

I’m still grieving and will be for a long time, I know it’s not linear. I find myself picking up the phone to call my mom forgetting that I can’t. So much has changed in such a short amount of time.

There’s a concept that I’ve come to love dearly over the years - liminal space. It’s the in between of no longer and not yet. It’s the threshold of a new story. It’s living in the mystery of the unknown. It gives a name to change.

It’s flowy and abstract and that’s part of why I love it, but the reality of it is that it’s messy, and it’s not afraid to be messy in a world that so often wants to appear put-together and perfect. It hurts. It often requires you to feel lost (not the show.) And this whole year I have felt nothing but lost. I remember one afternoon I drove down to a hiking spot I used to go to in college, one of the only small uphill climbs in Northeast Indiana, and called my dad at the top of the rock to ask him what he did in his life when he felt directionless. 

I had been lucky enough to take a vacation at the very beginning of this year before the shutdown, a week-long trip out to Los Angeles to visit some friends and spend some of that wonder-time out near the industry I want to be a part of. I was already feeling restless then, ready for something new and, trying even at that point, to find the courage to leave my job and go after what was actually in my heart. In fact, my original plan was to make the leap of faith out to California by the end of this year. 

Instead, I’m moving back home to Pennsylvania in January. It’s the opposite of how I thought this year would turn out, but it felt like the right step in being able to find something grounding, in being closer to my family and getting back on my feet. 

I’m writing this on New Year’s Eve, December 31st of 2020. New Year’s is typically a day in our society when we reflect on the past year and reveal hopes, dreams, and goals for the new one. Last year at New Year’s I wrote a piece with the line:

“Life doesn’t reset at the magic stroke of midnight.”

And right after that it says:

“Change takes more than a moment but it’s a choice in a moment.”

We know nothing will be fixed just because the calendar now says 2021 instead of 2020, but we do put hope in the sentiment that things can, and will, change in time.

I choose to still believe in magic. I know that life can be terrible but I know that life can be beautiful too. I know it can change  and I know it can get better even when it feels like it never will. 

Like I said, the liminal space we are in is messy. It’s unpredictable. It teaches you to let go of control.

But what it also does is help you find your way. Sometimes you need to get lost in order to be found. 

There’s a long way to go until I feel as though I can say I’ve found my way again, so I’ll learn to make friends with this mystery, this unknown. I’ll lean into hope, one of magic’s companions. Because hope is simply the audacity to believe. 

To believe that wonderous things happen even on the darkest of nights. To believe that the sun will rise so we can try again. 

Maybe that’s the real secret in the end.  

Little by little, day by day, friend by friend, I’ll work my way back to believing in the magic of this life again. 

And one day I’ll be able to put back on that well-worn smile, and with a mischievous twinkle in my eye, say: 

“A magician never reveals their secrets.”