Untested Magic

Nancy ♦ November 9, 2017 ♦ 8 Comments

One of my favorite movies is “Funny Girl.”

It was released in 1968, when I was 17 – and oh, how I loved everything about Barbra Streisand, Fanny Brice, the music, the costumes – and the whole era. Perhaps my enchantment with this film may have partially motivated me to write LUCINDA’S SOLUTION – which is set in the same pre- and post- WWI period.

My favorite scene from the “Funny Girl” is the adorable Roller Skate Rag. Fanny gets her first break into show business in a novelty roller-skating number. Of course, she’s a disaster on skates, completely out of control. Eddie Ryan (the soft-hearted guy who gave her the part) catches her as she careens wildly into the wings.

Eddie:  “I thought you said you could skate!”
Fanny :  “I didn’t know I couldn’t.”

Wow.

Just wow.

Just because Fanny has never roller-skated before, doesn’t mean she thinks she can’t. She instead assumes she can – because  – well, why not?

I mean, just think about that line for a minute. And put it into your own life.

Instead of focusing on all the things you can’t do, think about all the things you just might be able to – only you don’t know it.

This life is so complex – so full of possibilities. No one gets a chance to do everything. We are only just scratching the very surface of all the possible experiences.

And it’s very likely, with all the things that we never get a chance to do, that some of them we might actually be pretty good at.

We have undiscovered abilities that we will never know about.

For me, perhaps, I might be able to do lots of stuff that I most likely will never get to do.

But who knows? Maybe I could.

I don’t know that I can’t.

I will never know that I can:

 – Make friends with a bear

 – Create Christmas ornaments of blown glass

 – Deliver a baby

 – Ride a unicycle

 – Live in an igloo

 – Solve a murder

 – Discover a constellation.

Years ago, I knew a guy who had a plane. And he took me up for a ride. But before he took off, he showed me how to steer and what I would do if he had a heart attack or something. It was kind of surreal. And of course I never got a chance to land that plane. but who knows?  Maybe I could have.

Like Fanny, I don’t know that I couldn’t.

And how about you?

You are just full of amazing potential that you will never get to explore.

But it’s still there.

Doesn’t that just blow your mind?

You magical creature, you.