I am standing on my deck talking to a piece of glass.

Not tapping. Not typing.

Talking.

A few moments from now, I will walk back into my office, sit down at my desk, and find that thought, that conversation waiting for me on a computer inside the house.

I understand enough about technology to know it works.

I also think it’s magic.

This is not a new feeling.

I remember fax machines.

Not the modern versions. The old ones.

The ones that printed on rolls of paper that felt vaguely waxy and seemed to fade into oblivion if left in a filing cabinet for too many years.

You would feed a piece of paper into a machine in one location and, somehow, a copy of that paper would emerge from another machine somewhere else.

Magic.

I know there were phone lines involved. I understand there were signals and protocols and engineering principles.

Still magic.

For a long time, I used a mobile phone for exactly one purpose.

Phone calls.

I wasn’t interested in text messaging. I wasn’t interested in carrying a tiny computer in my pocket. When smartphones began appearing, I remained stubbornly attached to the idea that a phone’s primary responsibility was to function as a phone.

Then came a BlackBerry.

The keyboard intrigued me.

If I could type on this thing, what else could it do?

That question turned out to be more important than I realized.

Over the years, I have purchased old computers simply to take them apart and rebuild them. I have installed operating systems for the sole purpose of seeing what they would do. One aging laptop eventually became a bedroom music player because it seemed a shame to let it sit idle.

Technology has always felt less like an appliance to me and more like an invitation.

What happens if I push this button?

What happens if I connect these two things together?

What happens if I try something no one intended?

Now I carry a device that serves as a camera, notebook, library, flashlight, map, telescope companion, recorder, music player, and communication tool.

Today, it’s helping me have a conversation with an artificial intelligence while standing barefoot on a deck.

I know how remarkable engineers, programmers, designers, and researchers made that possible.

Understanding the mechanism has never diminished the wonder.

In fact, it may have increased it.

Perhaps that is one of the quiet gifts of growing older.

Not preserving mystery by avoiding explanations.

Preserving wonder after finding them.

I am standing on my deck talking to a piece of glass.

I know exactly how it works.

Still magic.