The stage adaptation of My Neighbour Totoro begins with two children and their father moving into a countryside house, while the mother is dying (/maybe not dying) in hospital. It then ends with two children and their father still living in a countryside house, while the mother is dying (/maybe not dying) in hospital.
How clever and important to muse upon magic: a little, over used word, that is also - as you point out - the portal to awe and wonder. Art - as experienced at the Barbican on a January afternoon - can be such a portal. The challenge is to carry a small part of that wonder out from the magician's lair into the quotidian and o see a wearingly familiar world in a new way. A poem can awaken that wonder - the magic of well chosen words - perhaps also tomatoes - the magic of well chosen foodstuffs over fire...You make a persuasive case.
How clever and important to muse upon magic: a little, over used word, that is also - as you point out - the portal to awe and wonder. Art - as experienced at the Barbican on a January afternoon - can be such a portal. The challenge is to carry a small part of that wonder out from the magician's lair into the quotidian and o see a wearingly familiar world in a new way. A poem can awaken that wonder - the magic of well chosen words - perhaps also tomatoes - the magic of well chosen foodstuffs over fire...You make a persuasive case.