Magic Paper

"That is it for the magic paper!"

That's what he wrote, my ex. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. And I really do not need cryptic email this week, or any week. He pokes hard near holidays - poke, poke, poke...sigh.

Magic paper???

And so my head started spinning and I emailed him back about what the heck the Magic Paper was, then I called him. This stuff can drive me nutz. Amazingly enough, he eventually called me, but not before I'd burned butter in the pan, knocked over a stack of folded laundry, and fed bird seed to the bunnies.

He was...well...tipsy. Luckily he was in a good mood - not the usual tipsy - and he responded to my curiosity with one of his deep roaring, WRaHA HA HA HAs. Very funny. More like...strange.
"Well, I guess you couldn't see what I was doing when I wrote that, " he laughed.

"Yeah, well, no..."

"I was wrapping Kiddo's Santa present, " the ex 'plained, " and I ran out of the 'special' paper, you know...the MAGIC paper. It's GONE."

Ah...yes... the MAGIC paper, the paper that the Tooth Faerie always used to wrap presents and notes in. And the same paper that a reindeer or two would leave extra goodies in. And that paper, that shiny white paper with gold stars and silver reindeer and flecks of holographic snow. THAT paper. He HATED that paper. He made fun of me when I bought it...maybe because I bought a dozen rolls of it? Could be. Ayuh.

But the ex, even though he won't admit to it, liked magic as much as I did. We just lived on different planes of, umm....happy. And our son, as if not overly susceptible to fantasy as it is, got a double dose of fostering in The Magic - faerie dust in notes, sparkling paper, shoebox-sized hologram machines, packages stuck three feet up (or down) the chimney, reindeer prints on the shed roof, the kitchen floor, the carpet...ai yi yi. Face it, we still live with Watership Down. Magic.

Kiddo is 16. And he is Magic, living in The Magic of fantasy and reality -- the trees, the river, the sea, the rocks all come to life. For one more year, though, the Magic Paper must also come to life and so today I cut the last roll of Magic Paper in half and put it in a Magic Envelope and put it all into the hands of that other magic wielder.

We only grow away from hate by finding that magical common place, and greeting it face to face.