A friend of mine posted this message the other week “Look for people who bring out your magic, not your madness” to which my only response is “What if your magic looks like madness?”

I was having a magical morning; the sun was shining, the air was crisp but not too cold. It was the Three Bears of fall weather for vampires like me who want the sun but need the cold to soothe the burning of their skin. The only weather that is better in my opinion are the minus thirty Celsius days where it’s so bright that you wander around the snow drifts shouting “I’m bliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiind! Bliiiiiiiiiiiiiiind!” before heading back into the house for sunglasses.

I was on the bike. And singing. Because there’s no point in having a weird bike unless you own it by also performing in a one woman musical as you ride down the street. Now before anyone gets too impressed by my physical fitness, I should amend that statement to- I coasted down the street. Although we have a reclining baby seat for infants, my daughter insists on craning her little head up and forward like a tiny, ginger periscope, so to protect her neck, I go an average of ten kilometers an hour.

So I’m singing away and my excellent mood continues all the way to the grocery store where there’s a car cart just sitting out, saying “Take me, I was left out here just for you.” This of course makes me smile wider so that I look like a T-Rex about to devour the metal shopping cart. A happy T-Rex who loves Abba.

Mini-Tex climbs into the front and I pop my baby into the seat in front of the handles. This is where things went awry. Now I had an audience. Specifically my infant. So I am singing to beat the band and kissing her and smiling away, just looking like a crazy person in general, but it’s fine because crazy beats homeless and I got mistaken for a vagrant last year.

I steer my way around the fresh produce section. There’s lots of room, few people, mostly grandmas who are remembering joyful mornings with their little ones like the one I’m having. Still singing so all was eccentric but still well.

Everything was good until the narrow aisle that was closed on one end for renovations, that was when the wheels fell off the eccentric cart and it became a crazy train because I broke into a new loud song just as I was turning the cart. Which would have been fine had I not locked eyes with an uncomfortable looking man who for a second thought I was speaking to him. To make this awkward moment even more cringe worthy, I belted out the lyrics “Hold our your hand darling” at that second.

So I did it. I called a grown man “darling” in the middle of the grocery store and sang to him. He’s probably decided it’s safest to shop at the competing grocery chain and that perhaps he should consider backing the NDP in this coming election because clearly mental health sector is not getting the attention or funding it deserves.

That was my magic. It unfortunately looks like absolute madness. I’m uncertain whether I should be searching for more people to bring this out of me. My gut says “no”.