When All Things Are Possible

It struck me the other day that my son, caught in the awkward border between childhood and adulthood, still has the capacity to believe everything is possible. Things that are clearly outside the realm of reality can't be entirely dismissed by him. When he was very young, he spoke for some time about wanting to create a "showing up machine", which later became abbreviated to SUM. The concept was for fictional characters, through the SUM, to become real. I explained that this was pretty much what movies and television were about, but my imagination was clearly too limited. He was talking about something closer to teleportation, but from a fictional universe to our own. I, too, wish such a thing could be created, but for me, the notion is flattened by pragmatism.

More and more, I've found the ability to have that childhood openess to possibility never entirely leaves. Outside of a toy store in Downtown Disney in Orlando, a couple in their 20's was walking by. The woman said, "Look! Did you know you can build your own lightsaber in there?" The man, clearly showing his Star Wars devotion, stopped suddenly, widened his eyes, and asked, "What?!?! A real one?" Soon after my husband had moved to Philadelphia, he'd been listening to the radio on Christmas Eve. He was startled by what he'd heard. "Did you know a reindeer was hit on the expressway? And on Christmas Eve! How weird is that?" It took me a moment before I had the heart to say, "No, it was just a joke. We don't have reindeer in Philadelphia--it's not THAT far north!"

Always the extreme optimist, I like to say that I'm only at the halfway point in my life. And it seems each year, some of my adult-adopted cynicism erodes and things I'd thought absurd seem within reach. Skepticism has occasionally been defeated by events that could be classified as miraculous. And, at this point, I've never looked more forward to what wonderfully unexpected, unlikely thing might happen next.