Noticing magic

One of my dear friends in North Vancouver is an amazing host. She asks everyone great questions, is interested in what you have to say and we have hosted many of our children’s and family’s celebrations together. I wouldn’t want to reduce her great intellect to this one statement, but it’s good advice because of how it makes you feel. If you do it.

“I always have my shower and wash my hair at the start of the day, because I know that I will run out of time and then the guests are there…..”

I have taken her advice many times – but not last Friday.

Last Friday’s event had played out in my mind in conversation with my collaborator, Charlotte; in the middle of the night when Lilly had gotten me up and I couldn’t get back to sleep; and as I walked through the streets of Copenhagen looking for the perfect paper and some stamps that I could share at the craft table.

It had been the reason for my lists, my focus, and an awful lot of hard work involving my family.

We started two months ago.

And through it all, we had a clear vision of what we wanted.

Charlotte and I wanted to share an experience of a Julemarket in my Garden with a twist…it needed to have elements of creativity for people to play, have a west coast vibe and feel magical….

The garden would be a main character in the experience.

But the main character who is more like a facilitator or an expert server in a lovely restaurant – your water glass is full, but your conversation is never interrupted and you don’t notice the water being poured into your glass, the workshop time passes and you were lost in the experience….

For the garden to reach this level, it had to change to think about the guests it would host, some who knew it and many who were new.

This garden is up to the task of being enchanting, holding surprising little corners of quiet beauty and holding lights high in the air on branches on a dark, cold still night.

In GEMs, we often focus on one of the key tenets of creativity: noticing.

Noticing can help in all aspects of a creative life.

I am realizing that it is helpful here to see our Market — to evaluate it for next time, to find joy in the moments, to see what I could not capture with the camera in my pocket.

Last week I mentioned how my garden was ready for all the firsts:

the first time someone shared their poetry, the first time someone attended a market as a vendor, the first time someone sang in public after open mic nights.

On Friday, my sweetheart found a free table that came with 6 chairs. The table was shared with a lovely vendor. Thirty minutes before the gate opened the event, my dining room table had so many special people around it and with the addition of 6 chairs everyone had somewhere comfortable to sit: my niece and nephew and a young friend (all of whom I had hired to help) and all our vendor partners.

I wanted everyone to have some homemade soup in their stomachs and for them to feel welcome to my garden and to share my appreciation for taking a chance on our untested idea.

As everyone was just finishing up, it was 5 o’clock. I went with Lilly to open the gate right on time. There wasn’t a line up of people impatient for the gate to open ( as I had imagined)….there was just the clean new chip that we had laid throughout the garden to make for a level clean surface.

The first person to arrive was my knitting friend in a newly finished sweater with her friend who had just finished the same complicated colour pattern– so I got to take a picture of and for the sweater twins…

In welcoming people ( I knew everyone’s names from the registration – and I had the list in my pocket) I got to hear all the comments about how they saw the lights from around the block, could smell the hot gløgg as they approached and could hear Jess’s voice singing…. they hadn’t seen anything yet.

Then my niece and nephew gave them their paper shopping/gift bag, their cookies from Smør a local Scandinavian bakery ( shout out to Charlotte’s friend Harriet who came up with the creative idea for packaging them which we did together the previous afternoon); and a gift tag that they could write their wish for the wind to carry (by tying it to one of the fruit trees).

My friend’s thoughtful husband came along and took over the pouring of the gløgg insisting that I take a break so that I could see everything in the garden. What a lovely gift.

I stood and watched as Jess led a sing-a-long with the Christmas carol Silent Night;

I watched people stand in front of the fire warming their outstretched hands;

I heard people meeting who hadn’t seen each other in years;

I saw people walking slowly through my little paths taking it all in;

I saw people look around the space.

I saw Charlotte leading her wreath making demo.

I saw lots of people buying gifts ( and I got to hear what they were excited to get)….

I didn’t get to meet everyone.

But I was at the gate as some people were leaving….now are they only saying this because I had used this word in our communications before? Somehow I don’t think so.

Many people leaned in to say the word with emphasis: it was magic.

The next day, after my shower and washing my hair, I hosted a group of people who all knew one person who had brought them all together.

We made wreaths.

On Sunday, my sweetheart and I went for a little hike. We talked about all-the-things.

Knowing that I was going to write to you about this…I asked him if he thought magic and awe are related.

I agree with everyone who told me they thought this experience was magic.

For me it was the notion that it all came together— all the things that as an organizer you cannot control — the weather—all week it was rainy and yucky. On Friday, we woke up to sun as the forecast predicted.

The moon was out. There was no wind.

No one tripped in the garden. No first aid was required for anything.

Everyone who came was friendly and wonderful.

All the vendors came and brought beautiful work and their creativity and generosity shone through.

The lovely woman I met for the first time at Bilston when I was at their market with my cyanotypes said she would come, and despite technical computer challenges in finding the page– she and her friend persisted and came.

My next door neighbour who is relatively new and whom I have not met yet came because she heard the music and followed her curiosity, despite the fact that her invitation was inside on my desk— some things I never got to.

But the feeling of magic surely is not the sum total of all these things for a relieved organizer…I think it’s more than that.

Perhaps it is a culmination of those things you don’t need to know, the widening of the paths for example, the people, the feeling of generosity that a garden can offer…..the cool air, the sound of live music.

Is it magic and a little awe that one could ask the quintessential creativity question: “What if” and that it would be the very thing that you had imagined. Made more wonderful by the fact that you and your friend both saw it.

Or is the magic because that is only half of it. The other half you cannot foresee– the part where people come – and they bring not only their essence, but with groups there is a chemistry that happens, and so it contributes to a feeling.

A feeling of safety to be oneself.

On Sunday, when I took these pictures in the sunshine, I looked around the garden with Lilly, we read the wishes, and admired the light.

Quietly, I said thank you to the garden for hosting this experience that is now a memory.

Like all moments in life, it can never be repeated.

It is a singular event. We are all changed by experience, and so we are not the same person the next time.

Maybe magic is also a way of recognizing that it “all came together” this once.

Impermanence.

What do you think? How do you define magic when it comes to gathering experiences?

I wish you peace on your path,

Lise-Lotte