The Magic

How did Friday night become my constant salvation? After a week of falling, tumbling helplessly and grasping for branches and weak grass roots along the ravine, finally resigning and thinking perhaps it would be best if I stayed home and simply went to bed.

But we made our way through the dark, quiet Greenpoint streets to an abandoned convent where the chapel was filled with guitars. Walking closely together, we explored the eery building, softly stepping down darkened corridors and peaking into decrepit dormitory rooms. Everywhere whispers about the ghost of a nun on the third floor; no one went there alone.

And then the music started, careful harmonies streaming through stained glass windows, one gravelly voice making the house silent, and my mind burst into words. I scrambled for a pen but ended up writing with an eyeliner in the back pages of my current subway read.

For the entire gig, I sat mesmerized by the Moment, by the beauty of the music and the emotion of the room. Incense smoke and creaking chairs. Films of the old West and beads of sweat along the singer's closed eyelids. Having become so jaded, so cynical, I reveled in allowing myself to be swept away. To sit in a small, abandoned convent in Brooklyn, New York, and remember what this Life is.

We buy so easily into the myths, into the painted portraits of our role models, our heroes, our gods. We try to emulate them by painting ourselves the same way. But when the real moments arrive, you know them instantly. When the Magic strikes your heart, you can close your eyes; you are Home.