I was recently told a story about a playwright who was interviewed on the subject of Magic Realism, a literary genre made famous by Nobel prize winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez. She was asked "What is Magic Realism?" My paraphrase of her response is," There is no such thing as Magic Realism. It is just how our culture is, and that term is just how the western world understands it. IN Latin American culture we are daily affected by the spiritual, the magical, our past, our future, nature."
I ask myself, where did the magic in my world go? In the file at the back of my brain that is labeled "Obselete, Due to Science Course in College."?? And if so, why not pull it out to use it in special cases? More intriguing, why lose the Magic just because I know it's not...or do I?
My grandmother is a magical woman. She certainly believes she is. She's the one who told me of the instances where she's had premonitions of things happening and they do. She's the woman who sticks the pointy part of a key into my cuticle when I tell her I have nausea and then the nausea is gone. She's the woman who told me the following story:
Long, Long ago in San Pedro, Garza Garcia, Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico...the ranch where she was raised...My little Grandmother, Petrita, and her friend would play in the desert, near the mountains. History told that chests of gold were buried all over San Pedro during past wars, and though most hadt been evinced, not all. Every once in a while another treasure would be discovered (I even heard of these stories as a girl when I visited San Pedro). One afternoon, while playing in the desert, Petrita and her friend met another young girl who they played with. That afternoon, this mysterious new girl told them exactly where in the yard a treasure was buried. Days later the girl returned, urging them to dig for the treasure. Petrita's little friend ran home to tell her father about the treasure chest and the little girl, but the parents concluded the girl was a figment of their imagination (keep in mind studies show that though people can have visions or hallucinations, the same hallucination cannot be had by two people.). Out of curiousity her father went to the supposed treasure spot and began digging. Lo and behold! A Chest!! Now, word of mouth had it that the first person to open a treasure chest would die; word of mouth science actually says that the gases released from a buried chest of pure gold were toxic when first uncovered (if someone wants to research this and get back to me.....). Sure enough, the chest had gold, the father became sick, deathly ill, as did Petrita's friend who fell sick out of fear from seeing a ghost. The father lived, the little girl died, and my grandma was sans friend. Now, there's a family in San Pedro that is very wealthy and powerful and has produced many a mayor (remember this town was named wealthiest city in Latin American not long ago.). My grandmother told me that that same rich family is the one who became wealthy after the discovery of the gold. Now how about that! And she told me this story as matter-of-factly as she told me how to make chiles rellenos.
Now I attribute all this magic business to the mix of natives religious beliefs of the original inhabitors of Mexico with the Catholic mysticism the Spaniards brought over. But I do find that those indigenous, earth cultures from long ago had a certain connection to life and spirit that we have somehow lost. I mean, check out the Mayan calendar, so incredibly accurate, science-wise too, but how? How did they do that? Was that magic for them, what we now consider science, even though we have no understanding of how they did it?
From my readings I have discovered that although most believe science has discredited any supernatural happenings, much is still unknown about the brain, about how we use intuition, and a certain sense which people connected to more pre-enlightenment.
Point is...I am staying at my friend Ellie's till I find an apartment. I know for a fact that there was a roll of papertowels next to the sink that I used two days in a row. Yesterday I checked, and it is gone. SO I looked around. Perhaps I dropped it to the floor, perhaps I placed it in a cupboard or the fridge mistakenly, perhaps I was sleepwalking and threw it away or brought it upstairs. Nope. The papertowels are no where to be found....and I have locked all the doors and checked them more than I check my own, and I have checked for anything else out of the ordinary but nothing.....My guess....I can make things dissappear. Or maybe it skipped back into the second dimmension, so I can't see it because it's flat and since it's not in the fourth dimmension, it doesn't move through time so it does not exist. Woah.
