That’s what I want to do. Go beyond.
June 2025
I have a very strong familiarity (meaning: I listen to it to go to sleep at night and can quote it verbatim) with 30 Rock.
This quote at the end of Season 7: Episode 9 – Game Over (while the credits are rolling) always gets to me. She asks her entourage where they went the night before and the woman responds “Bed, Bath and Beyond.” Octavia says with force and excitement “We went beyond!”
One, how often are you excited to go to a store that is around all the time and keeps your USPS mail carrier in business with the 20% off coupons filling your box?
Well, now I would be. Because it’s gone. I spent many a year collecting those 20% off coupons (and some $$ off which you could combine!) and using them for everything and anything. When Bed, Bath and Beyond got personal care, first aid stuff and makeup…that was a game changer. I was there every week or two to get my essentials with my expired 20% off coupons (you could use 1 for each item you had!). I had a bag in my trunk (so I always had them) and sorted them by use so I could get the best deal.
That line was funny at the time – it was just another store that was everywhere. So to imagine it was something special seemed crazy. Now it’s funny because it’s true. Some will never experience “Bed, Bath and Beyond” or “Triple B” as my house referred to it.
I did go “beyond” about a head of lettuce at the farmer’s market a few weeks ago. The first fresh produce of the season makes me lose my head a little. I brought it inside to show my mother when I visited. When I brought it home, I raved about this lettuce (and all the other lettuce) to the significant other. His look (which happens often) was “I’m glad you are happy but I have no idea what you are talking about.” Shoving the lettuce in front of his face didn’t give any more clarity but I tried…
Photo by Antoni Shkraba Studio
This is not THE head of lettuce…just imagine me with a head of lettuce waving it around like a magic wand.
I want to see more magic (I want to go “beyond”) in more things. There is so much that we take for granted and then all of a sudden it’s gone (fresh produce, a homegoods store). What used to be annoying and steady is now missed, remembered with rose colored glasses.
What if I could do that more often with everything? Okay, maybe not everything but at least some things.
As someone who appreciates and craves full transparency, I have realized that it is the transparency that I seek that takes away the magic that I say I want. I can’t have both. I can only have one.
I had a small plastic reindeer family when I was a child, a Mom, Dad and Baby. I would put it out along with the rest of our Christmas decorations (pretty sure they visited the manager) as my contribution to the holiday. And one Christmas Eve (the one I call that magical Christmas Eve), I snuck out of my bedroom to see if Santa had been there yet. He hadn’t. So I went back to bed.
I don’t remember falling asleep. I do remember suddenly seeing the tree lights through the cracked open door. Santa had come! (He turns on the tree to tell you that he’s been there.) I ran back down to the living room. The cookies and carrots (you have to feed the reindeer, they are the ones moving Santa around!) were gone and the presents were there.
And later on that morning, I noticed that he also gave the baby reindeer a red nose. It was magic.
I remember knowing/believing at the time that Santa wasn’t real and it had to be my parents. Yet, I hadn’t heard or seen them move as the tree lights popped on (their bedroom was right next to mine.) So maybe there was magic, I was so excited. I was so excited to be proven that there is a bit of mystery and magic in a world that was so quickly turning into monotonous boring adult life (I was 4 or 5 by the way!)
I’m now 43 years old, heading into middle age and I’ve never asked my parents about that reindeer and the nose. Logically, of course it was them. I probably slept through them moving around and didn’t realize it. I still want to pretend that maybe, just maybe, there was some form of magic to that night and still is in the world. (Even if I haven’t experienced it.)
That’s why I want to go beyond and want to keep going beyond. There has to be magic, there has to be the unexplainable, otherwise, what are we doing?
While watching “The Crown” (just this past year), I was struck by Edward Duke of Windsor’s quote during The Coronation Episode (Season 1: Episode 5 interestingly called “Smoke and Mirrors”).
“Why have transparency when you can have magic?”
Why indeed?