Dressed Up As Magic

Am I an agent of change or a collector of luck?

I am in a season of preparation. A calm before the storm. The first light of dawn.

I crave for everything to get bigger, louder, more visible, yet I am also asking for the small moments to yell my name.

I want a big life, but sometimes I find my voice fighting to muster itself. The ground I'm standing on thinning. The ladder I'm climbing swaying in the wind.

Am I waiting on a miracle, or am I carving the way for one?

A superstar is the one that makes us amazed by the impossible. A superhero reminds us we decide what's possible.

So somehow, I figured out how to let presence ease into my nervous system long enough for a miracle.

Help me figure out if I created it or witnessed it. Or both.

So that big life that's been calling me? I think it exists in a small apartment on the other side of the world. Where a language I can't hear fully sings to my soul. Where a culture beats to my own drum. Where every move I make is like spreading pixie dust. Every moment feels like, and therefore is, a miracle.

But, damn, is it hard to figure out how to get there. To also tell myself, maybe I could just arrive there and figure it out.

The last time I wrote on this blog, I gave up on something really important. Tallying a point system on where to go next. One foot in Spain one day, one step back in LA the next. And I either magically made it happen or I created propaganda for myself to experience presence in the form of last week’s opening night of Mamma Mia, in a role timelines beyond my own.

But I was still forgetting one thing. I am not alone, by any sense, in creating my future.

In comes, you guessed it, Mr. International.

I know I express many of his great qualities on here, but I have to share with you his work ethic. He is one of the most selfless people I know. And right on cue, as I wrote that line, two Rio love birds just popped up on my TV screen in front of me. I know what you’re thinking: this girl and her signs. Yes, so what? It’s a coincidence I'm choosing to read anyway.

That's kind of the whole point, isn't it? Believe in things so deeply that your ability to notice and react to them becomes your magnet for the best the world has to offer. To what most overlook. To what you specifically are made to see so you can pursue what only you do.

Back to this Rio love bird.

Mr. International has spent his life sharing others’ dreams with the same level of conviction as if they were his own. Seven years in the Brazilian special forces turned into one of the quicker journeys of becoming a black belt to carry on his family gym legacy.

And on Friday, the family gym legacy revealed it didn't include him in the way he thought. Smart and present as ever, Mr. International felt it coming. In his words, "the things you expect aren't sad, only the things you don't." So he moved with grace, with ease, and discovered his unique position built on a mix of magic and proactive smarts. His upgrade of the gym name, and my help getting it online, had already made the client base he’d built over the past two years his own, separate from the family legacy.

When the keys were snatched from his hands, sadness didn't intervene. He walked four minutes down the road to Legacy Jiu Jitsu, and noticed the schedule was blank at every time his classes were taught, the tatami on the third floor sitting teacherless.

Ten minutes until the owner came back. In that time, he veered right and saw it: Legacy Jiu Jitsu LA | Barcelona. His heart raced. His groundedness whispered, note it, but don't get too excited just yet.

The owner walked in with a welcoming smile, and it turned out he'd seen and admired Mr. International's teaching before. A three-hour coffee chat turned into my boyfriend becoming Director of the gym, and learning that it's one part LA, one part Barcelona, looking for a bridge to keep the two presences connected.

More will come. More will develop. But the pure understanding that rolled over me in that moment, and that I've been fighting like hell to keep in my pocket, is this: anything in this life that you are willing to hope for, pray for, cry for, scream for, can be yours once you express it, let it go, wait, and create.

Call it magic. Call it self-creation. Call it will. Call it thy will.

And here's the thing I keep circling back to. The blank schedule was already blank. The teacherless tatami was already empty. The owner had already been watching him. Mr. International calls it a mix of luck. I see it as two years of him being excellent in a space, outgrowing it so much that the door only opened because he'd already built the key.

So maybe that's my answer, the one I've been asking for this whole time. I'm not waiting on a miracle. I'm not carving one out of nothing either. I'm doing the thing that looks like pure luck to everyone who didn't see the years of quiet work underneath it. I express it, I let it go, I wait, and I create. And when it finally arrives, dressed up as magic, I get to decide what to call it.

I'll call it love this time.

As The Notebook bravely says:

Allie: "Do you think our love can take us away together?"

Noah: "I think our love can do anything we want it to."