The Magic of Writing

I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of ‘magic in the moment,’ how if we are living totally in the present, we can open the door to key Light Runner, by Philip Brownexperiences.

I was in Hawaii one time with my family. I’d never jet-skied before, but thought it would be a good father-daughter activity (my daughter was a teenager at the time).  I had a vision of doing some sort of free-range jet skiing, skimming over the water wherever we wanted to go. But instead, we were confined to a limited section of water and ended up just going in circles around a large raft. It got kind of boring. Jostled and pounded by the swells and wake from other jet skis, I also found jet skiing to be uncomfortable.

We’d jet skied for a while, and I kept wondering when out rental was Light Runner, by Philip Browngoing to be over. I think that sense of boredom helped me to focus on the moment because I was just looking at the water in front of me, navigating the jet ski, modulating the speed, when something shiny caught my eye. I looked more closely, and it took my breath away—a school of flying fish was swimming just ahead of my jet ski. Silver scales flashed, caught the sunlight, blended with the glittering water, leapt through the air, and splashed back beneath the surface.

I think writing is sometimes like that. The page can be confining, and you feel like you are just going in circles. Then, into the field of vision . . . something silver flashes over the surface of the text for just a moment, disappears, then another and another, until all of a sudden the page becomes alive with sparkling light.

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