\u201cMagic exists. Who can doubt it,\u00a0when there are rainbows and wildflowers, the music of the wind and the silence\u00a0of the stars?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0– – – Nora Roberts<\/p>\n
In 1957, when I\u00a0was eight, my father showed me a rectangular card with blue and silver graphics\u00a0of two astronauts in spacesuits and helmets, holding oxygen tanks and walking\u00a0on a white surface in boxy-looking boots. The card had a serial number and a\u00a0hand written signature in blue ink.<\/p>\n
\u201cGuess what this is,\u201d he whispered.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy are we\u00a0whispering?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause it\u2019s a\u00a0secret. If you promise not to tell, I\u2019ll let you in on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI promise.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a ticket\u00a0from Pan Am for the first space shuttle to the moon,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re going\u00a0to the moon?\u201d I whispered. \u201cWhen?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAs soon as I\u00a0can.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCan I come\u00a0too?\u201d I raised my voice. \u201cYou can\u2019t go without me!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSh-h-h. I have\u00a0four tickets\u2014one for each of us. We\u2019re all going. But don\u2019t tell your mother.\u00a0She\u2019ll think I\u2019m nuts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pan Am had placed\u00a0an ad in the newspaper, offering seats on their first commercial flight to the\u00a0moon to civilians, first come, first serve. My father sent them this note: \u00a0<\/p>\n
Attention: Reservations<\/em><\/p>\n Gentlemen: I wish to reserve four (4) seats, first -class,\u00a0for your first trip to the moon. Please advise when we can plan to make this trip, and how much luggage we would be permitted to carry.<\/em><\/p>\n Thank you for confirmation.<\/em><\/p>\n Very truly yours, Samuel M. Cagan<\/em><\/p>\n Shortly\u00a0afterward, he received a signed confirmation letter with four tickets enclosed,\u00a0declaring us to be members of the First Moon Flights Club. It was all very\u00a0official and exciting, but I was pretty sure my mother would be a hard sell.<\/p>\n The\u00a0confirmation letter read:<\/p>\n Dear Moon First Flighter,<\/em><\/p>\n Thank you\u00a0for your confidence that Pan Am will pioneer commercial space travel, as it so\u00a0often has here on Earth. We have every intention of living up to this\u00a0confidence.<\/em><\/p>\n The enclosed cards\u00a0formally recognize your intrepid spirit. It also reflects by serial number your family\u2019s\u00a0position of record on our Waitlist For First Moon Flights.\u00a0Starting date of service is not yet known. Equipment and\u00a0route will probably be subjected to government approvals. Fares are not fully\u00a0resolved and may be out of this world. We ask you to be patient while these\u00a0essentials are worked out before we accept deposits or make confirmed<\/em> We plan to keep you informed of all developments and we thank<\/em> Sincerely, James Montgomery<\/em><\/p>\n Vice-President, Sales<\/em><\/p>\n My father was pure magic. He would toss me in the air and when he put me back\u00a0down, I ran beside him and together we kissed the wind. A strikingly handsome man, he always looked like he\u00a0was ready to break out into a smile. He had a full head of smoky brown hair,\u00a0perfectly defined calves beneath muscular thighs, and an infectious sense of\u00a0humor. He was irreverent without being rude and he always had surprises. Perhaps in preparation for our upcoming moon shot, he took me to the Planetarium where we saw thousands of stars projected onto the domed ceiling. One morning, he woke me up before sunrise and we drove to a vacant lot to see an eclipse of the sun. He was fascinated by both science and mystery and he taught me to look for the unexpected things that were hiding in plain sight.<\/p>\n No matter how scary or hard life\u00a0was, my father reminded me to find the magic. He said it was always there in\u00a0some form or another. We just had to remember to look for it. He taught me not\u00a0to be afraid of adventures and surprises. When we had crashing thunderstorms, There is magic when superheroes\u00a0do impossible feats like flying through the air, scaling the sides of\u00a0skyscrapers or disappearing into thin air, but there is also magic in the\u00a0little things. Music that carries you into a different dimension. Hummingbirds\u00a0whose wings can flap 200 times per second. Ballerinas who dance and jump on the\u00a0tips of their toes. The way our bodies heal. A baby taking her first steps. And\u00a0for me, figuring out how to do something new on the Internet.<\/p>\n Real magic is a great deal more\u00a0than card tricks, making doves appear and sawing a woman in half. It\u2019s a feeling,\u00a0a sense of mystery, a way to marvel at the inexplicable synchronicity of life J. M. Barrie, the author of “Peter Pan,” said, \u201cThe moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever\u00a0to be able to do it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cMagic exists. Who can doubt it,\u00a0when there are rainbows and wildflowers, the music of the wind and the silence\u00a0of the stars?\u201d \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0– – – Nora Roberts In 1957, when I\u00a0was eight, my father showed me a rectangular card with blue and silver graphics\u00a0of two astronauts in spacesuits and helmets, holding oxygen tanks and walking\u00a0on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2365,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2366"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2367,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2366\/revisions\/2367"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
reservations.<\/em><\/p>\n
you for coming to Pan Am first. That\u2019s exactly what we intend to be. On earth.<\/em>\u00a0To the moon. Any place else.<\/em><\/p>\n
he took the family into a screened porch at the back of our house and with each\u00a0flash of lightning and peal of thunder, he told us stories, he made us laugh\u00a0and I still associate thunderstorms with excitement and play.<\/p>\n
as we know it. If you can accept that there is more than the mundane comings\u00a0and goings of daily life, if you can imagine that there is a great deal more\u00a0than the eye can see, you can find a way to start rising above the darkness and\u00a0heading toward the light of the miraculous. All you have to do is believe.<\/p>\n