Magical thinking is the hummingbird that hovered overhead when I left home this morning.
My glib Christmas wish for a long-suffering speaker to work properly, and my return from the holidays to find it off the fritz.
The Alison Krauss song from my grandfather's funeral playing outside one of his favorite restaurants, shortly after he died.
Great-aunts recalling brushes with spirits in hushed tones around the dining room table.
Workers building the H-3 highway on O’ahu, spending all day manning machinery to move massive boulders, only to find them back in place the next morning.
You can listen, smile, and believe them. You can greet the ancestors.
Alternatively, you can label the incidents as illusions, and put your money on the measurable universe.
I regard the crisp line between fantasy and reality with skepticism, but I understand its allure. The known world is more compliant, more receptive to definition and control. When you pin it down, it will promise not to change.
Just for tonight, I'll give in. I'll pretend that we know all there is to know, that the world is sensible and transparent. That my grandmother didn't see her late husband in the kitchen, and a ghost never dwelled in the machine.
I don't mind playing pretend. We all have our fantasies.
