Crowded F train, 10:30pm. I'm holding Big Magic (the book) in my right hand while clutching the ceiling pole with my left as I hover over seated people. A spot clears out so I slide over to where I can lean my back against the door.  

The guy standing to my right holds up his book and says "whoa I'm reading the same thing!" Then we glance at the open pages to discover we are literally on the same exact page, a chapter titled Success.

 

I ask him what he thought of the book and about his story. As he’s talking, I listen in awe as I imagine this human being and all that has happened in his life and his creative journey that has led up to this moment in time that our paths matched up to have this short conversation.

 

He is a writer and performer named Rusty who has some great ideas that he really wants to attend to. Big Magic is speaking to him. He doesn’t want that thing to happen again where he wakes up one morning to see an idea he came up with on the TV, brought there by someone else.

I didn’t say much about what I was up to, but I feel like we made a silent pact in that moment. To do our thing. To stop making excuses. To continue to be curious and open to magic.

 

Before he gets out of the train, I tell him I look forward to seeing his work someday.

 

….

 

And before the digital doors of this blog post close during the few minutes you and I, dear reader, get to spend together, I’ll leave you with a similar sentiment:

 

I look forward to seeing YOUR work someday. Not necessarily on TV or published in a book. Not by a measure of worldly success (although high-fives if it does happen that way!). But rather, in a magical moment when I most need to receive its message. Because isn’t that why we’re here, afterall?

 

To me, the magical moments make it all worth it.

 

Quoting Elizabeth Gilbert from the chapter that Rusty and I collided on:

 

“Do what you love to do, and do it with both seriousness and lightness. At least then you will know that you have tried and that--whatever the outcome--you have traveled a noble path.”

 

Be curious. Be disciplined. Be open.

 

Tend to the creative ideas that enter your consciousness.

 

Do it because it entertains you, and stop if it doesn’t.

 

And most importantly, don’t forget about the healing, magical force of human connection.

 

to letting magic happen,

Jess

p.s. If you haven’t already gotten a copy, I highly recommend Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Big Magic.