Sunday Scribblings on a Thursday

Magical thinking has made me who I am. It is a trademark of the obsessive-compulsive, this belief that I can think irrational things to life. But not fabulous things--only the scary and mundane. When the notions finally present themselves, I nod my head and say "I knew it; it is because I am psychic."

I secretly know that I am not psychic

I just wait for the shoe to drop, is all.

The first shoe, maybe a little sandal, makes hardly any noise at all, but I hear it. It is someone I love talking about buying a cookbook on healthy eating, and I see it as a sign. I watch and count and tap my fingers and tap my toes and tap my teeth and I wait for the dropping shoe. When the pregnancy is announced, I pretend that I made it happen; I heard it drop before it left her foot. Magical.

Sometimes I hear many shoes dropping at once. This happens with deaths, I think. Three shoes at a time, or in a row. Someone told me that as a child, and I have never been able to think of it any other way. I heard four shoes drop this month, so I am listening for two more. No one is safe, and I am desparate for news of loved ones.

Some listeners would obsess about the causal effect that the magic has on society, but I know better. Just like the gypsy does not make the fortune, I hear it early and report. I don't feel guilty, just better informed and safer. It all makes me secure. I heard Steven King say that sometimes he writes horrible things because then he knows that those same situations won't occur within his family. Magical. I know in my secret heart that I am doing the same thing: just a bride waiting with a full lamp. Nothing is scarier than the unknown future, so I wait for the next shoe to drop.