The title of this post is taken from Puff the Magic Dragon – one of my favorite songs. I loved it as a child (and if by some miracle you read this, John “Ishmael” Marvin, I want you to know how much it meant to a lonely little girl when you played your guitar and sang of Little Jackie Paper). I loved it as an adult, and sang it to my children when they were small.

What comes next may sound like a digression, but bear with me.

Like many people, I struggle from time to time with depression and anxiety. Sometimes it’s situational (fears about the pandemic or anxiety about climate change or sadness over the seemingly intractable racism in our society or grief over a personal tragedy . . . ), sometimes it’s chronic. Whatever the cause, it can be difficult to get up, and face another day.

Occasionally, when that feeling descends, I think of the line from Puff the Magic Dragon, about what the boy brought to his dragon –  strings and sealing wax and other fancy stuff. That seems to encapsulate life itself: the mundane (strings and sealing wax) and the magical (other fancy stuff, like dragons who travel on a boat with billowed sail).

Reality is like that.

Yesterday I washed dozens of dishes. Today there will be dozens more. Tomorrow there will be laundry and bills and doom-scrolling and errands and wrestling with the perpetual mystery that is technology.

But yesterday I also cuddled my dog, and he made those happy-dog crooning sounds (woe betide anyone who calls it purring – he would be quite offended!).

And today I will stand under the towering cedar outside my door and breathe in the cool air, rich with loamy green and brown scents. And tomorrow I will bake oatmeal cookies, and burn my tongue a little because I can’t wait until they’re properly cool.

The magical and the mundane. Here’s to the joy and contentment that may be found in both.