It’s wonderful to pull the velvet curtain back

And peer inside the world that’s meant to be

Hidden from the view of all but those selected few,

The puppet masters, making magic for our pleasure,

And yet we cannot help but want to know

What happens in the backstage rooms,

Where cogs and pulleys grind away

To dazzle us with beauty, scenes that make us gasp.

And so we always sneak a peek, and what becomes

Of minds that know the ugly truth?

We must be wired that way, to want to know

That magic doesn’t really grace this world.

I was thinking, today, about our need to know how things work and what goes on behind the scenes. As humans, we seem wired to need to know these things, even though we know that finding out the secrets will take away some of the magic.

Today, I was walking back to my car after going shopping and as I drew near to the cinema I saw two employees pushing trolleys up from the nearest road. They had just had a delivery that obviously couldn’t come in through the back for some reason. On the trolleys they had huge vacuum packed sacks of popcorn.

Now, I don’t know about you but I always thought that the cinema used corn that they heated and popped right there on site. I had very romantic ideas about it being buttered and salted and served to me, freshly popped.

But, not so. It’s just shoveled into that heated glass case, straight from those plastic packets.

I’ve ruined things like this several times. For example, I thought that shops made their croissants and bread in-store but nearly all of them buy it in frozen and just bung it in the oven for ten minutes before they put it on the shelf.

And yet, I continue to want to know what goes on behind all of those STAFF ONLY doors that I walk past. Why on earth do I want to spoil everything by knowing how the magic is created? We really are funny creatures.

Much Love

Rachel xx