Comment: Heart, Ego or Magic? by Joana Varandas
Joana finds herself in a seemingly fated, somewhat magical, Cornish situation.
“I’m struggling as a philosophical imaginative kid. I want there to be magic in the world. I want there to be a lot of things. I want to believe … in a lot of things. I hold an intellectual self in my hand, [the same hand] where I hold my fourteen-year old self all the time. But my older self knows obviously, that … maybe it’s not true, maybe you shouldn’t take this [for granted] … But I’m also humble to the idea that neither myself nor you, or anyone else knows. So, you might as well be open minded. One day we’ll see anyway … If you just make the best out of the time that you have here, it will all be revealed ...”
The process that led me to the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in Boscastle, Cornwall is a complicated one.
Someone told me the other day that there are only two ways of making a choice: you can either follow your ego, or follow your heart. But now that I am here, sitting in the library of a museum that I have wanted to visit ever since I was a child, (not as a visitor, but as an intern, cataloguing books, artefacts and audio recordings!), I can’t help but wonder: was it magic that brought me here?
The other day I was listening to an interview with Cecil Williamson for cataloguing purposes. But amidst the crackles and sizzles of the old recording, I wasn’t hearing this man say why he had created the Museum. Rather, his words were rearranging themselves into my own thoughts: what were the odds that a woman from Portugal, whose life had been a complete mess, would be listening to that tape, forty or so years into the future?
Museum of Witchcraft and Magic (Boscastle, Cornwall)
So … choices. I have never had a massive ego, and only lately have I been able to listen to my heart. For ten years, I put off my dream of studying in England; in my loneliest days, I can still hear echoes of what people told me before I came to Falmouth: “why don’t you find an eight-hour job instead”, “why won’t you buy a new car”, or even better: “why don’t you just find some guy and get married”?
One at a time, or all of them put together, these sentences constantly shaped a single image in my mind: me in my death bed, surrounded by people I didn’t even like, just because I had married some guy. “Filled with regret, waiting to die alone.”
Museum of Witchcraft and Magic (Boscastle, Cornwall)
Now, remember when I said that getting to the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic was a complicated process? Here's that process. Fifteen years ago, girl watches show called Wild West on British comedy Saturday-evening specials. Girl becomes intrigued by characters that live in quiet, secluded coastal town of Cornwall. Girl becomes enamoured with character that works in a Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, and how quirky and weird she seems to be--not unlike the girl herself.
Fast forward into the future: girl finally decides to apply to University, after some life altering circumstances that shall go unmentioned. When asked by the student counsellor where she plans to apply, girl replies: "What universities are there in Cornwall?"
A year later, girl sits in front of computer writing an article for Cornish university website, while doing an internship in the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, in … you guessed it, Cornwall.
Girl laughs at the dim likelihood of achieving her dreams and ponders: How did I get here? What were the choices that brought me to this wonderful feeling of accomplishment? Did I follow my heart or my ego? Or was it… something else?
If you’ve read the quote at the beginning of this article, you might have suspected that I want to believe in a lot of things. (And that I like the band Ghost.) I spent years trying to find my way out of a place I didn’t feel any connection with at all, failure after failure leading me further astray. Until one day, something clicked. The failures didn’t end of course, because what is life if not a constant process of learning from experiences and transitioning towards a better self?
No; what clicked, and what I want to believe is that magic brought me here. Not ego, or heart, or whatever you want to call it. Magic. And if I make the best out of it, maybe one day, I’ll see anyway. One day, it will all be revealed.
by Joana Varandas