“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places.  Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”

– Roald Dahl

I am an ever-changing being whose experiences in this life have taken me on some pretty wild rides.

In only twenty-two days, my oldest son will have a birthday.  On October 5, I will have actively parented for forty years.  That gets my attention!  I pause now and then and think of the early days of babies up at night and toddlers learning to walk and first days of school and graduations.  I think of the crazy years when we had a teenager, two pre-teens, and an infant all at the same time.  Maybe it’s the lack of sleep, but those years just flew by — so fast that sometimes I remember a sort of blur.  Three years ago, my youngest daughter graduated from high school.  This left only my resident granddaughter needing our daily attention and guidance.  As she entered middle school, the blur of the busy years began to slow a bit.  I realized that for the first time in more than thirty years I had some time to consider what I would do with the next part of my life.

I’ve heard my generation referred to as the “sandwich generation,” as we support and care for elderly parents and our children at the same time.  I’ve joked that with a grandchild to raise, we are the “club-sandwich” people — and suddenly we find ourselves with only a few crumbs and a frilly toothpick remaining on the plate.  I’m feeling full and satisfied and scanning the dessert menu.  Now that I’ve taken in all the required nutrients, what will be the icing on my cake?

It was with this transition in mind that I packed up a year ago to travel for the weekend to Shepherdstown, WV.  My big brother had moved there last year; and now that we were not so grounded by our children’s schedules, Mark and I were finally free to go visiting.  Although the focus of the trip was seeing my brother and checking out his new home, I found myself in an awesomely cute little town with shop after shop lining German Street.  After Sunday brunch, the guys indulged me and went exploring.  Now…anyone who really knows me knows I’m kind of weird.  And that’s fine with me, because I guess most normal people would see it as sort of unconventional to meet a deep-loving, deep-thinking, spiritually motivated, drumming, joyful sixty-year-old with rocks in her head.  Oh, yes…did I mention that I have rocks in my head?  Or maybe it’s in my heart.  Either way, there is little on earth or under it that can get me excited like some awesome stones and crystals.  So we were wandering down German Street peeking in store windows when we came to On the Wings of Dreams.  I stepped through the door; and in an instant I knew that I’d found a magical place.

Hidden there, in the midst of a visit to my brother, was a niche filled with all the dessert I could hope to find on that menu of mine.  I wandered through the jewelry and meandered through the crystals and lingered over the rough stones that could offer lots of fun when placed in my rock tumbler.  I sashayed past the incense and the singing bowls and landed in the back nook with bookshelves lined with title after title that made me wish I had another lifetime to read them all.  ’Maybe I do,’ I thought, as I considered my slower pace of life and the opportunities that lay ahead.  There in the center of the book section, I saw some magical artwork:

I had to take a picture on this year’s trip so I could share it with you today.  I was drawn to the Bone Sighs by Terri St. Cloud; and since I had no $$ to spend, I scribbled her web address on a grocery receipt in my purse and made a mental note to look it up when I got home.  After signing up for the Daily Bone Sigh in my email, I began to feel curious about this person.  Finally, when one of the daily mails hit right at the center of my own experience, I responded.  We wrote back and forth, tentatively at first, and discovered our shared affinity for being genuine and for falling into the sky.  Gradually, our friendship took root and began to grow.  Over the past year, the branches have spread and on each one of them I’ve found another and another amazing woman who I have come to call “sister” and “friend.”

Who could have guessed that the recipe for my dessert would begin to come together in a random trip to an unknown corner of the universe?  Who could have guessed that I would open the door to the sort of magic that would expand my circle and bring me in touch with so many other wonderfully weird women?  If you’d like to meet them, just go to my blogroll and click away — you’ll be glad you did!

I must finish now and go fill my rock tumbler with some special stones that carry the magic that flies On the Wings of Dreams.  They will serve as place holders in my heart that will transport me whenever I see them to the place where the magic of friendship cast its spell and forever changed my circle of friends.

Be sure, as you walk through the ordinary days of your life, that you view the world with the glittering eyes that expect to find magic in the least likely places.  Believe!