I want magic
on gratitude as the world burns
In early sobriety I walked over seven miles a day - not for any health initiative, I simply lived in the USA, didn’t have a car and had an irrational fear of getting on the scant public transport services available. People did offer me rides, but I preferred to walk, it felt, at least, like something I could control. I had surrendered everything I had to the unknown, but I could at least be in charge of when and how I got places. Rain, shine or polar vortex - I would be on foot. An unexpected benefit of this impractical conviction was that around six months sober I started noticing things for the first time as I walked. The world outside my demented thoughts, the one I’d stopped at nothing to blot out, started to pull into a new focus with new recognitions of colour, shape, texture and beauty.
On one of my discovering-the-world-around-me walks, I noticed a pin on the ground. Tiny, shiny and speckled with gold, it read in a goofy font:
‘There is a bit of magic in everything.’
Because I was hanging on by a fucking thread, I decided this was a message from the universe that I needed to develop a sense of wonder again. Being in early recovery, nothing felt particularly wonderful yet. I was treating prayer like a complaints department to an invisible administrator, meditation as an opportunity to spiral and gratitude as writing a list of things that didn’t suck, unwilling to call it gratitude yet because only losers called it that. But stumbling upon this twee pin, for reasons I can’t explain, felt like a suggestion. A wink from something bigger than me, to appreciate that all this was so unlikely.
A miracle is an extraordinary event that defies explanation, and can be attributed to something divine, outside of our human understanding. Magic is more of an enchantment, but shares the same qualities of coming from something deeper, behind an unseen veil, that can be accessed with patience, an open mind and enough belief. My recovery is a miracle, I have no idea how I got here. Seeing the magic helps me remember it, and keep committing to it.
Like I said in my article 100 things to support your mental health that aren't go for a walk and drink more water, self-care and perception shifts are not always useful in the face of your basic needs being threatened. Self-care, cultivating joy and experiencing gratitude alone cannot solve the housing crisis, raise the minimum wage to match the cost of living or protect people who need protecting. But, again, as I said in that article, I absolutely refuse to be taken under, because there is work to be done - if I want a village, I have to be a villager, active in my community. In order to not be taken under, it is necessary that I take care of my mental health and recovery, cultivate joy and experience gratitude. It allows me to direct my effort and energy to where it is needed right now, towards other people, without becoming jaded, exhausted or making it all about me.
Sometimes I feel a bit entitled to my gratitude, like it was a given - rather than something that never would have happened if I hadn’t found recovery, opened myself to ordinary beauty of daily living, and been loved by people that could easily have decided not to bother.
Gratitude, wonder and the magic are not about happiness, they are about appreciation. Like everyone, I have a lot to be mad about, a lot to be scared of, but I am also one of the lucky ones right now in that I have protections and safety that are being taken away from many people right now, people I love. I have a capacity to keep my current of gratitude flowing, and I must if I want to show up for my friends who are not safe, not protected and risk falling apart.
When I was an opera singer, the English aria in my package was ‘I want magic’ from Andre Previn’s setting of A Streetcar Named Desire. It starts -
‘Real, who wants real, I know I don’t want it - I want magic.’
I related, I wanted to exist on any other planet than this one, where I could experience relief, enchantment and a sense of otherworldliness. But I’ve since realised in a very heaven-is-a-place-on-earth way that I can have magic here and now, if only I look for it and acknowledge its presence. Despite my unconscious (and sometimes conscious) commitment to being very fucking pessimistic earlier this week, I have also found some magic.
“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” — W.B. Yeats
The central line stopped at Marble Arch, and I was in my least favourite area of London looking for a bus. Being that it was 9am, I expected them all to be busy and I had an hour of standing, shoved into someone’s armpit as I made the hour long trek back East to look forward to. But the 55 was empty, which allowed me to sit on the top deck, at the front. As a London transplant, who moved there in a misguided attempt at saving a relationship and somehow ended staying after it ended, it was a while before I had that ‘fuck, I live in London.’ moment because my first year was scrambling to stay afloat in a city that is famous for spitting people out. But I felt it one day, on a similar bus, looking out over Tower Bridge and realising I’d come a long way, and lived somewhere I thought you could only visit, if you were very lucky. Then it became boring, because it was just my life, another thing with a sense of ‘not enough’ around it. On the 55 at 9am I experienced that earnest feeling again, as if for the first time. It crept up on me, and I took my headphones out, to just watch the ornate facades of historical buildings, trees weighted with blossoms, the tourists having their once in a lifetime trip, people buying fruit from markets, the skyline deepening with iconic landmarks. The sun warmed my skin against the window, I’d come an even longer way since the first time I felt this way.
It’s become warm enough that I can open my windows, people’s conversations are thrown towards my third floor room by the echo of the overpass. I will often be stirred from my internal monologue by laughter, the logistics of plans or ‘I love you!’ as a goodbye.
I made congee, remembering the first time Chris made it for me, when I was recovering from pneumonia and he said it would make me feel better. It did, and still does.
My money plant has two more leaves than it did before I repotted it. My bank balance is not in a good place, but my money plant is.
I cried at the Fire Force intro on the treadmill at minute 46 on a vicious incline. Maybe it reminded me of the ‘Love is Running Towards’ sign above the Shoreditch fire station that makes me teary every time. The fact that people run into burning buildings to help people they don’t know, I’ll never get over it.
"Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden - in all the places." - Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden.
My flatmate called me her friend. I’ve always been the sort of person who overestimates her position in people’s lives - but here I was, undeniably a friend.
I walked down the street I live on and bumped into three people I know. A neighbour I shared a hug with, an acquaintance I exchanged a nod and sly smiles with and a friend I had a long conversation with as she waited on the bus. God I was so lonely for so long, and now I’m known in so many different ways by so many different people.
Like many mornings, I just needed a moment to myself. I’ve always needed these. My nana told me that as a small child I would leave large groups of family to sit by myself for a while. She followed me once to ask if I was ok, and she tells me I said with quiet recognition of my needs ‘I’m ok nana, I just need my peace.’ Young me really knew something that present me can forget sometimes. I ate persimmon and blueberries in a green velvet chair, and daydreamed for a short while.
I have a solar powered crystal pendant hanging on my window. The sun hits it at 3pm, and it starts to turn. My students I teach at that time always enjoy the slow whirling sounds of it kicking into life. The children I teach ask me if I’m a witch casting spells, the adults I teach become children, following rainbow splashes on the walls, for just a second.
We changed over the wifi, and it worked. What the fuck, wasn’t this supposed to be a huge disaster with a million calls to customer service and fumbling about with wires for ten days?
“Real magic can never be made by offering someone else's liver. You must tear out your own, and not expect to get it back.”
― Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn
I know that I can’t make anyone get sober, I can’t tell them how to get sober - but I can tell them how I did it and offer any support I can. Someone did it for me, she committed to spending an hour of her life she’d never get back talking to a stranger who is where she once was. I don’t know if she knows that I’m still sober and that that conversation was so life changing for me. I now know that she would have spent that hour talking to me whether I got sober or not, because it’s time I willingly dedicate myself, without requiring the other person to even take it in. I just want them to know I’m there, I see them, and it’s possible. It’s one of the things that keeps me going, knowing how many of us out there are willing to do this.
When I was struggling Josh sent me a text every now and then asking if I wanted to come over for dinner, or come over to his flat a few doors down from mine and work together. I was so in it at the time that I didn’t realise how intentional this act of love was, and how much it carried me. A few mornings ago we shared three cannoli, sharing bites, savouring sweetness. It had been a hard morning, but it at least had something else in it now.
“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it.”
― J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan
It’s not tone-deaf to look for the magic, it’s a survival mechanism, like hope. Magic isn’t just fairy dust, it is created and shared, by people who believe in something. Wonder is recognising things that matter rather than being in the tram-lines of striving. I’m not looking for silver linings to justify tragedies and create some universe where it should be happening - I’m strengthening the supports of my foundation, the less fraught areas of my life, finding resolve and looking for some little joy, something that can grow into something bigger. If I want a better world, I need to have a conception of it. A better world requires sacrifice, discomfort and uncertainty. It may not happen in my lifetime. Until that time, I am also committed to making something beautiful in the day to day element, wherever I can - a phrase so cliché that it would fit perfectly on a pin that someone might throw away, and someone else may find and have a wee moment with.
I am sending you so much love,
Lauren xo
On patreon this month I am continuing my my trauma informed singing course, where I use my skills as a singer, teacher and researcher into trauma’s effect on the voice to upload weekly lessons which encourage creative release, safety in the body and confidence in your musicianship. It is a mixture of breath work, body work and singing exercises to unlock, release and nurture your voice for self expression and self-experience. We ease open the places we are holding onto something that is no longer helping, and seeing how it feels when we let the voice rush through. On Patreon we can discuss your goals, and you access every weekly uploaded lesson and the entire catalogue of every lesson that has been uploaded so far. The lessons are half an hour long and are taken at a gentle pace, appropriate for beginners and people with experience who want a more breath orientated way of singing, and most of all they are loving little devotions to your body and your creativity.
My Patreon (Tier: discipline, surrender, flow for singing)
You can also purchase a package of these lessons, and try one out, here:
What you will receive is:
My article about trauma's effect on the singing voice.
A youtube playlist with the 35 lessons (you can take at your own pace, I recommend doing one a week and then practising what's learned in the week to let the nutrients soak in, but you can absolutely take as quickly or as slowly as you like, they are half an hour each, and work slowly and gently from a basics!)
A track with the vocal warm ups.
A track with the breathwork exercises.
A glossary of terms.