Keeping Secrets

I didn't expect the toughest part of my renewed journey down the magic road would be keeping secrets.  I mean, yes, of course keeping secrets is tough - learning a new trick without tipping off how it's done can be the real trick, but that's not what I'm talking about.  The TOUGHEST part of this magic trip is trying to tell you about it, without telling you what exactly I'm learning to do & what skills I'm working on.  Who knew explaining without explaining would be such a challenge?

I can tell you, for example, that I've been learning new skills with playing cards, but I really can't tell you what those skills are.  I might be able to tell you that some of the cards are in one hand and the rest in the other, but how & why they are where they are is a secret.  I can further tell you that it frustrates the hell out of me when you see some of the cards (or worse, when they hit the floor), but I can not tell you why - well, except those on the floor, but that's just fat, clumsy, still-in-training fingers.

The ironic part is, I expected to be cruising through the writing part of this joy ride.  A good chunk of my professional life is filled with writing one thing or another, so blathering on about it all should be a breeze, but I'm stuck with this backseat driver yelling, "YOU CAN'T SAY THAT!" in the back of my mind.  Man, I hate Editors.

I will let you in on one secret.  I have heard more than one magician say, "If you want to keep a secret, don't tell it to a magician." After all, magicians are people too, prone to the same human foibles as anyone.  In the magic world, there is a long history of tricksters sharing a new secret with "only one close friend," only to find it exposed to the magic community in mere days.  Funny, when secrets are stock & trade of the profession, that magicians are terrible at keeping them.

For this exercise to work, I need to keep you in the loop, with timely progress reports, if only to keep myself on-task.  On the other hand, I can't tell you the whole story, as some day we might meet face-to-face, and I may want to perform what I'm learning for you.  Telling you exactly what I'm doing before I actually perform a trick is a little like telling me there's kale in a salad before you serve it to me - the result will be hard to swallow.

As with most things in my life, I'm finding that one skill can't help but spill over into another.  My words about this magic road must be, for want of a better word, deceiving.  Luckily, I've worked in advertising for years.

Let's make a pact. Because it's more fun to be fooled,  I won't expose any tricks, and you pretend I don't when you finally see me perform.  We'll keep this our little secret.