Wuthering Heights
I was on the phone to an old friend, my first girlfriend actually, and things were not going her way. She had moved overseas, lost a property she was buying, lived in what was little more than a garden shed, finally bought another place, and with money tight was living in it whilst it was being completely remodelled. So, she was living in a building site, no wifi, no tv, no kitchen, and the friends she has out there, rather than looking out for her, and maybe looking after her, hadn’t showed up.
She was pretty down, bordering on gloomy.
I remembered how years before, on a road trip, when the radio broke she decided to sing her favourite song, Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush. She couldn’t sing, not at all, not one note, but she sang it anyway, at full volume, all the way through, and we both laughed so much, literally crying with laughter, and I almost crashed the car.
So, I asked her, “Anyway, how’s the singing career?” and in seconds we were laughing again, just the same, and the gloom was gone.
Stuck
A few weeks ago, I was standing outside a venue, just about to start a gig, a magic show, but I didn’t have an opening line. It’s the one unscripted bit of the show, I always just trust something will come to me in time, something about magic, from the heart.
Unfortunately I was stuck in a thought loop about something sad that had happened earlier, not the best place to be when you’re a minute from showtime and don’t know what you’re going to say.
I looked up at the sky and just like that I saw a shooting star, walked in to the venue, up to my mark and opened with, “Magic is happening everywhere, all over the world, in all our lives, for all to see, if we just need to know where to look.”
Later I found out it wasn’t a shooting star, but a satellite, magical in its own way, I guess.
The Running Man
I was tail-runner at my local Park Run, a few years ago, shepherding in the last runners. Right at the back, by a distance, was a guy, just about as old as the hills, running as slow as you can, and clearly determined not to walk a single step.
He told me a bit about his life, about the business he had started, in his early 20’s, and how hard it had been for the first couple of years. He was living in his office, sleeping on the floor, often going without food, working 7 days a week, but success always seemed just out of reach.
I asked what kept him going, and he said, “I had a dream, I could see it like a movie in my mind, of going to the National Business Awards dinner, and walking up on stage to collect the top prize”. Whenever he felt like giving up, he ran that movie, found the strength to continue, and ended up with a successful international business.
“Did you ever win the award?” I asked, as we eventually neared the finish.
“No, I needed that dream more than the award, so just to be on the safe side, I never entered”, and then sprinted ahead of me to cross the line.
One Magic Trick
We all get stuck, in the gloom, have to deal with sadness, or work without much reward, we all get overwhelmed by our world sometimes.
A good trick, to move us on, to lift the gloom, to keep us going, is simply to MOVE YOUR GAZE.
Try looking in your Past, when we think of a funny or happy memory, we relive it, feel just like we did then, and it flips us to a happier state. There is always something in our Present, everyday life, a smile, an unexpected moment of joy, or kindness, if we just look for it hard enough, that will lift us up. Thinking about our Future, a dream that’s clear as day in our head, an event we’re looking forward to in the near future, a holiday booked in the diary, helps us keep going.
I hate to think of you stuck, Dear Reader, but love to think of you moving your gaze, working a bit of magic on yourself.
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