“Excuse me, do you have a few minutes to spend talking with me?” I was sitting alone in a little cafe called The Fireside when this small elderly woman approached me. “I was in a car accident years ago, that’s why I look like this, and I like to walk around town and talk to new people. Will you talk to me?”

So we sat, knee to knee in deep cushioned chairs, at tiny cafe in a town she’d lived for 40 years, and traded stories about our lives and adventures. She was funny and engaging, and she looked me in the eye while I laughed at her brashness. “Everyone around here knows me and has heard my stories, so I like to find new people to make my world a little bigger.”

We both left that cafe grinning and feeling lighter, but I also left thanking the universe for bringing her to show me the way. For the past few weeks I had been alone, and hoping to make some connections with people in the little towns I was passing through, but it had never occurred to me to just walk up and ask someone for their time. I had tried eye contact and small talk with people who came to pet the pups, but none of that had worked like I had hoped. This was bold. She was bold and so brave. I’m not sure if I’m that brave, but it’s worth finding out.

I’ve been reflecting on magic lately and what it means to me, and how it works and how I can engage with it. I think magic is found within connection. Whether that connection is between humans, mountains, animals or just a place in time; it’s an awareness of a perfect loop of energy between things. It seems to me that the more open I am to magic, and the more I notice it happening around me, THE MORE MAGIC HAPPENS. It’s like running around a play field yelling, “I’m open, I’m open”.

I am a conduit for magic.

And lately the universe keeps sending me moments to exchange energy and share magic with the people and places I touch.

I have a big, sob-inducing fear I won’t remember how to be this open and shiny, or remember how it works when I return home. I can bring this with me, right? I can be a shiny ball of magic everywhere?