More Lessons in Magic
by Dana Gerhardt

“There are two kinds of magic,” I declared, regarding my embarrassingly rich bounty of Christmas gifts, “natural magic and the technological kind.”  Santa had brought me a super chrome espresso machine that with the push of a button would measure my beans and grind them, brew me a perfect European-style cup of coffee, then calmly clean and turn itself off.  I was also blessed with a digital camera that could assess the proper F-stop and shutter speed, record an image (even sound!), then allow me to view, crop, save, email or delete the shot without ever going to a developer or changing a roll of film.  Like magic!

The trouble is that neither came with a mentoring wizard.  Rather, accompanying each was a thick booklet that pronounced its secrets in print as tiny and humorless as a legal document’s.  I carried the instruction books from room to room, hoping this might prove an esoteric form of transmission; but after a week, I discovered I was no wiser.  I stared haplessly out at the orchards, the spinning clouds, the rising moon… natural magic I can understand.  Yesterday, for example, I discovered how a row of mature pear trees whispers altogether different messages from its neighboring row of saplings.  I can’t translate precisely, but I can tell you that it was thrilling, like the spontaneous, graceful patterns of the hundred brown birds that were working their way through the trees and up the hill.  

I know I’m being unfair.  One shouldn’t compare natural magic to the kind wrought by humans -- no doubt well-meaning engineers, who don’t read any poetry, but visit internet singles sites, play endless computer games and worry about their 401k’s.  This is why technological magic is overly complicated and not at all intuitive.  It only makes sense in a small circle of cubicles.  Yet I did want European style coffee without having to drive all the way to Starbucks.  Like Tom Cruise heading for flight school in “Top Gun,” I steeled myself to tackle the espresso machine’s instructions.  

Over three days, spending an hour each day…  I succeeded in mastering the lights and control panel, prepping the machine, and ultimately, brewing a cup of coffee.  But the espresso, which Robert said was supposed to be the best in the world, a claim confirmed by the instruction book’s accompanying video, dribbled out in my kitchen like dirty dishwater.  Friends came over that night and thinking to help, began pushing my complicated prodigy’s buttons like a slot machine until I feared it would flame and burst through the roof.  

“Hey Mom, I have something to show you.”  Days later, it was the full moon.  This is a time for revelations, and one never knows from which corner they’ll come.  My son had my new Harry Potter wand in his hands, another of my techno-Christmas gifts.  Pushing the wand’s plastic buttons ignited colored lights and a sort of disco wizard music, followed by a vaguely sinister digital voice, cackling a Latin-like phrase and concluding with great satisfaction, “Now your powers are all mine!”  It made no sense but was entertaining for anyone standing in the kitchen with nothing else to do. 

“Did you know it could do this?”  Branden pushed the wand’s buttons in an artful sequence that evoked a new string of Latin-like words, empowering the user with a spell that sounded and sparked at the wand’s tip like a lightning flash.  The perfect thing to point at kids not cleaning their rooms or eating their peas!  “How did you figure that out?”  There had been no instructions on the package.  Branden said he simply sat with it awhile, pushing buttons…  Until its secret was revealed.  In other words, he listened to it…  the same way I listen to trees.  

My smart thesis dissolved.  Technological magic was as intuitive as natural magic…  if you approached it clean as a child, with an uncomplicated curiosity and a willingness to play.  And why not?  Don’t espresso machines, digital cameras, orchards and the moon all spring from the same great mind of the divine, in thoughts as brilliant as birds and awesome as constellations?  I remembered once hearing of a Tibetan lama who helped repair a stalled car even though it was the first time he’d ever ridden in an automobile.  He just popped open the hood and gave himself to the engine until he understood.  

Over the next few days, I played with my espresso machine until we “communicated.”  I am now happy to report that, like magic, every morning it offers me the best cup of cappuccino in the world.  As for my digital camera, I confess I’m not ready for it yet.  But when I am, I know exactly what I need to do.