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“Magic lies in between things, between the day and the night, between yellow and blue, between any two things.”
― Charles de Lint, The Onion Girl

Enjoying a quiet Sunday, out on the stoop, and Irish wants to bark at some dog being walked way across the neighbouring parking lot some 500 or more feet.

Woof. I sternly say NO. She stops. So, she does listen, when she wants to listen. It’s when she wants to just do her own damn thing and to hell with you that worries me.

You have to be on your game with her. Always leader of the pack, or she’ll take advantage of the lapse. She’s very smart. Too smart. Though she really does play that blond bimbo role well. She isn’t. Much like Marilyn Monroe.

Tim always said I’d have problems with her. I at the time offered to oppose this suggestion, but he just waved me off, like I was daft to disagree. I found that sure-ass attitude of his somewhat annoying, at the time. It’s true that it is those very traits you miss the most.

Kind of a strange segway, I know, but you’ll see in a moment how it ties in. But, just now one these Facebook lists I’m on, well it posed the question (seriously can not recall which right now) on the writer that soothes you, that you can just sink down into, again and again, and be lost in their words.

“Everything is the way it is because we’ve all agreed that’s the way it is.”
― Charles de Lint, The Onion Girl

As I don’t normally comment on these things, I hesitated, but then thought what the hell. So I wrote of that day.

While, just now, I was on the stoop, contemplating how much I do so very much love deLint. Charles deLint books, and how truly wonderful it was that day. How magical.

I think it was the spring, the last year before he died. We had spent much of February going back and forth to London and the cottage for Tim’s chemo/radiation combo treatments. It was now early March, and I needed an escape. Tim was on pins and needles, as when he got back his doctor told him he wasn’t well enough to finish the last round of chemo.

There were other things she could have said that day. Other truths that I know she wanted to, but she didn’t. I guess she figured we just knew or something, without her telling us.

Well, she was wrong, or maybe she was right and we were in denial, but I needed an escape. Like heroin I desired some Charles. A new story, something lost maybe. One of the ones I’d lost when I lost all my storage stuff. I had a couple of deLint, but like a well-licked baggy, I wasn’t getting the same escape.

I prayed, I wished on stars, and let Tim rant and rave, and I said, No Tim, she said you were all clear of Cancer, have some hope why don’t you. I hated lying, but we both needed some fantasy, least for a few days.

So when I walked in that day to the one bookstore for miles and miles, and when I turned to my left and saw them sitting there, I nearly went down on my knees and wept. As I paid, I had tears in my eyes and had to wipe them away to see my change. In town, they knew about Tim, and I suppose she just thought it was some more bad news.

But, actually, it was for once not. Or not yet.

Magic is real. I believe.

“Sometimes we wonder what it’s like to feel normal,” Maida said. “You know, like all the people you see out on the streets or sitting in their little boxy homes.”

…

“But then”, Maida went on, “we see how boring they are and we’re happy to be the way we are.”
― Charles de Lint, Someplace to Be Flying

So just now, there I am, missing Tim. Missing his way of knowing me so well. His way of knowing that fluffy blond bombshell that misses him as much I do at times (though probably more so). Still.

Yet it has been a long stretch of days, months even since I read him. Charles that is. I’m going through a non-reading outbreak​ of late. I’m more of a spring, summer and fall reader, as in winter I prefer to wallow in self-pity, and I find archaeological documentaries are more suited for that frame of mind.

However, I have snacked my way through Amber since Christmas, re-acquainting myself with those Princes of Zelazny’s. So it’s not been a complete shutdown this time.

Ah, but alas, still, my first love for a great escape is, and always will be, de Lint.

“The best change you can make is to hold up a mirror so that people can look into it and change themselves. That’s the only way a person can be changed.”
By looking into yourself,” Zia said. “Even if you have to look into a mirror that’s outside yourself to do it.”
“And you know,” Maida added. “That mirror can be a story you hear, or just someone else’s eyes. Anything that reflects back so you can see yourself in it.”
― Charles de Lint, Someplace to Be Flying

Love,