42561 and I got into it today. I want her to change the way the thinks about magic. Just because the bus was nothing mystical doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have stopped and looked into it. I want her to know that there’s nothing shameful about magic. That there’s nothing wrong with being born with a gift. Leaning into it might be dangerous, but aren’t we supposed to be using whatever abilities we have to create the kind of world we want to live in? If we want things to be better, we have to make things better.
She told me angrily that I had no right to preach to her. She said that I don’t know anything about magic. Which is true. It would be generous to say that I’ve been even half trained. I said that’s why I want her to train me. I asked her to think about what we accomplished in Needles.
That was the wrong thing to say. That made her shut down entirely. She said that if I wanted to be a fucking magic private investigator and end up dead that was my business, but I shouldn’t try to drag her down with me. She went on at length about how if anyone found out magic was real, we’d be fucked.
I wanted to disagree with her, but a lady did try to stab me once because she read this blog and thought I was in league with the devil. Things haven’t worked out for anyone else I’ve encountered that found out about magic. But I asked her, if it’s so dangerous, why does she do it at all?
If she was truly only concerned about staying safe and hidden, she wouldn’t do magic at all. She would forget the entire thing. It makes no sense to learn magic just so you can hide that you know magic. She certainly wouldn’t have opened up to me about it even the little bit she has if the goal was to stay hidden. I said that I felt like part of her wanted me to convince her.
I expected her to say I didn’t know what I was talking about or stomp off, but she went the other way. She said of course what I was selling was appealing to her – who doesn’t want to be a hero? But that’s why it’s dangerous. She said that becoming a victim yourself doesn’t help the people you want to help.
Maybe that makes sense, but if we don’t do something, who will? Who else is there?
