I was 38 years old before I first visited Disney World.  Walking through the gates of the Magic Kingdom, I immediately became the teary-eyed 5 year-old who wanted to visit 33 years earlier... full of wonder & love, even as I stumbled off curbs. I am now, of course, much more mature, so when I attended my first gathering of magicians this past week, I was a teary-eyed 10 year-old... full of wonder & love.  Oh, and I did stumble off a few curbs too (more on that later). Understand that Magic and Meaning isn't just another conference for magicians; at least that's what everyone kept reminding me. Wisdom is shared, but not the kind you might imagine.  "Tricks" are taught, yes, but "Magic" is not so simple a word; so much emphasis was put on finding the deeper meanings of it all.  Heavy stuff for the worlds oldest 10 year-old. I'm still processing it all, and obviously there are things I can't and won't share about the experience, but...

I am a handful of days away from attending the Magic and Meaning conference in Vegas.  My entry into the affair happened by an unusual alignment of events... life changes, spur of the moment emails, and no small amount of faith in me from my wife and friends (even as I was losing it in myself).  I've never been one to believe in fate or destiny, choosing instead to hold onto the conviction that I have some sort of control over my own life, but looking back at it all, there certainly seems to be a clearly defined path that's leading me there.  It's like, well, magic. So what if I'm going to be the "new guy?"  Everyone is a beginner at some point.  Hell, as Chaplin pointed out in the movie Limelight, "That's all any of us are: amateurs.  We don't live long enough to be anything else."  All being a freshman really means is that I need to keep my eyes, ears, and heart open and my mouth shut as much as possible (I am me, after all...), I sho...

I'm healthy again, that's the first thing.  Let me rephrase that... I'm no longer feeling the effects of pneumonia.  I'm back to where I was before I did my best to cough my lungs out for several weeks. Things do change as I grow older, whether I choose to ignore the numbers or not.  Little aches that come out of nowhere and never seem to completely go away, fat bulges that poke out in the most unflattering places, and the odd skin discolorations here and there that the doctor insists aren't cancer... but are less than attractive.  Yes, things change, and it would be easy to sit still, bitch about it all, and pine for the "good old days," but the truth is that despite the normal wear and tear of aging, I'm much stronger, mentally and physically, than I've ever been in my life.  Why not push back, ignore the little physical distractions, and get busy doing things I've always wanted to do?  So I'm a rookie Magician at 55+, why not?  It ...