Before the road turns fully toward home, I find a door that isn’t meant to be found.
It looks like nothing. Unmarked. Easy to miss if you’re not paying attention. The kind of place that rewards curiosity and punishes hurry. Inside is a magic speakeasy hidden entrance, low light, the soft murmur of people who came here to be surprised.
It feels right that this is where I stop before going back to Toronto.
Magic has always existed on the margins of my life. Something I loved deeply, quietly, inconveniently. Wonder doesn’t scale well in a world obsessed with output. You can’t optimize awe. You can’t rush astonishment. Magic demands time practice without guarantees, failure without metrics, belief without proof.
For years, I chose productivity.
Not consciously. Not cruelly. Just gradually. I told myself I’d come back to magic when things slowed down. When work was lighter. When life was less demanding. I told myself wonder would wait.
It didn’t disappear. It just got quieter.
Watching the performers here up close, intentional, unhurried I’m reminded of a line from Dead Poets Society:
“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race.”
Magic lives in that same space. Not useful. Not efficient. Necessary anyway. Each trick lands not because it’s flashy, but because it’s considered. A pause held just long enough. A look that invites trust. A moment where impossibility is allowed to exist without explanation. I feel my body respond before my mind does… leaning in, smiling, remembering.
I think back to that Christmas party. Standing in front of my magic club, hands shaking slightly, knowing I hadn’t practiced enough. Knowing I’d shown up empty because work had taken everything. I bombed, and I laughed it off but something cracked quietly inside me that night.
I didn’t fail because I lacked talent.
I failed because I believed productivity mattered more than presence. There’s a quote from The Prestige that’s been following me this entire trip:
“The audience knows the truth. The world is simple. Miserable. Solid all the way through. “
But magic real magic asks you to want more than that. To insist on wonder even when the world tells you it’s impractical.
As I sit there, I realize disconnection from myself didn’t just take my energy. It took my permission to play. To be inefficient. To spend hours practicing something that would never pay me back in measurable ways.
This speakeasy feels like a reminder, not a revelation. The hidden door. The intentional slowness. The shared agreement between strangers to believe, just for a moment.
There’s another line, this time from Life of Pi:
“Which is the better story?”
For a long time, I chose the story where I was endlessly capable. Productive. Reliable. Strong. It looked impressive from the outside. It nearly broke me from the inside.
I’m choosing a different story now. One where wonder isn’t a reward for surviving but a requirement for living.
Soon, I’ll be back in Toronto. Back to familiar streets. Familiar expectations. But I don’t want to bring the old rules with me. I want to bring this instead: the understanding that some of the most important things in life are hidden, unmarked, and easy to miss if you’re in a hurry.
Magic doesn’t ask you to escape reality. It asks you to engage with it differently.
Before I leave, I don’t try to analyze the tricks. I let them remain impossible. I let myself be amazed.
It feels like the right way to end this leg of the journey.
Not with answers.
With wonder.