How to break a magic wand...

A bedtime story.

As a kid, I figured any future happiness I might find in this life hinged entirely on the existence of a higher power.

At this point, that looks to be a bad bet.

But my childhood fervor for the divine didn’t disappear altogether under the grinding heel of reality. Instead, much of the awe and wonder I had reserved for a magical overseer became somewhat more decentralized. I placed my faith, instead, in the power of trees and clouds, stars, people and animals. Especially animals.

Even inanimate objects like an old couch or a book or a dog collar held a certain awe and wonder for me. That’s the magic that came to replace my faith. And it proved powerful. I had a seemingly endless supply of lucky charms to ease the everyday frictions of life.

But over time, even that sense of the all-around divine began to fade. Like mold, once the mundane takes root, it’s near impossible to stamp out. And it spreads to every aspect of life. I became a man of the world — a hustler, a grinder, a 9-to-5er. I paid bills, followed sports teams, bemoaned the inequities of the world and resigned myself to the futility of it all.

At some point, finding no wonder left in the world, I took up the crack pipe.

And, for a while, that was the magic that sustained me. It allowed me, once again, to see the world differently from other people. I beheld the unseens — the addicts, weirdos and beautiful losers.

Sure, it was a tainted and wobbly lens. Maybe I couldn’t gaze up at the night sky with awe and wonder any more. The ceiling tiles in the bathroom would have to do.

And maybe the beauty I beheld in the people around me was an illusion — you see a lot of things that may not exist when you’re on crack. Sometimes, you wish so hard to see that beauty, it becomes a blindness.

But in the end, the pipe was the only magic wand I had left. When my wand was fully charged, my reality was fully changed.

When I set it aside, the mundane returned with a vengeance, almost eager to make up for lost time. Now, there are hospital visits, bad dreams, stupid TV shows, political despair and someone honking at me because I dawdled at a traffic light.

The old wand still flickers, occasionally, in the back of my mind. Or it calls out from a dream. But there’s something about the way my mom glows with joy these days — like we're reflecting each other. Or how the clouds appear from the edge of the swimming pool. Or how the moon winked at me the other night.

These little things conspire to keep me in this world — and find a little fresh faith in what dreams may come.