Right after my fifth birthday, I found myself plopped on beige, nondescript carpet in our finished basement in a suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was Halloween 1994—or at least, it was a Halloween party—and the air was thick with candy-fueled, costume-riddled anticipation. A magician was about to perform. Somehow, up to that point, my extensive life experience had not included witnessing a real live magician.
My memory is far from perfect, but I remember the magic show like it was yesterday. Wooden rabbits changed places without being touched. A die in a box vanished. Most miraculously, a gimmicked egg with a vanished silk inside of it transformed, in front of our very eyes, into a real egg and was cracked into a dish. Core memory acquired.
That first magic show conjures up a dichotomy: the freezing Minnesota outdoors and a warm, cozy neighborhood party. A corner of a room, normally used for building imaginary houses and conducting Play-Doh experiments, was transformed into a stage where very real miracles were performed. Rapt from start to finish, I sat captivated and in awe of the benevolent, polished, and somehow relatable magician.
To my recollection, the magician was part of our Halloween parties every year until my family relocated out of state in 1998. Although the memory stayed alive, we lost touch with Suzanne, the mysterious magician who left an indelible mark on my memory and my understanding of what magic can be and just as importantly, who can do it.