Meanwhile, at the rose covered cottage (Gloria, part 4)

Our paths were not intended to be fixed and unwavering.  For that we would run along tracks, never knowing speed's reckless wind in our hair, never allowing the moment of uncertain gnaw when we reach a destination we had not intended, never becoming lost.  Gloria and ambiguity had not been formally introduced.  Her people adhered to notions of sharp words and determination creating a version of wisdom, right choices, surefootedness.  Now as she stood in the shop's pre-dawn kitchen, rolling pin in hand, she saw herself as a photo, sealed to time and place and was unhappy with how little mobility that allowed.  And why was the smell of fish so strong this morning?  She had lived with it all her life, its pungence nearly unnoticed, like the watered-down dregs of smooth jazz playing in an elevator.  Suddenly it had become a twangy and unfamiliar accompaniment to lyrics she couldn't recall hearing.

We become habituated to our circumstances, lurching mindlessly or drifting passively through disappointments and dismay, turning ourselves custardy to fit events as they occur, trying not to see ourselves as stubborn, as timid, as resigned.  The trick, Gloria thought as she experienced near-whiplash at the revelation, was to keep the level of believing in magic constant.  In what we think may be magic but might just possibly be ordinary life wearing its own eccentric clothes, the highs and lows aren't so punishing nor so far apart.  We are able to rely on the unseen, on our memory of it at work with sleeves rolled up, golden hair limp with sweat, its buoyant outlook weightless enough to keep our doubts from sinking us.