Fairies once lived at our house. My daughter would see them late at night, flitting in and out of the little straw house that dangled from her swing-arm lamp. She also discovered them in the herb garden, where she prepared comfortable lodgings among the mint and lemon balm.

It’s been a few years now since the last fairy winged her way to an undisclosed location, as inevitably happens when little girls grow up.

But we’re luckier than most. My daughter may have outgrown her friends in the fairy world, but she hasn’t lost her sense of magic or her ability to find enchantment in the ordinary. And I hope she never will.

Magic, it seems to me, is one of the great untapped solaces of adult life. We don’t believe in it, so we fail to see it manifested in the world around us. Like the silver bell that stops tinkling by the end of “The Polar Express,” the magic of everyday life ceases to exist once Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy are consigned to the dusty attic of early childhood.

It took motherhood for me to once again connect with the world of possibilities unproven by the scientific method or evidence that could pass muster in a court of law.

It was so joyful to get swept up in a little girl’s excitement over receiving a note from Santa’s elf or a little boy’s desire to set off in search of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Because they could embrace the magical, I learned to do it, too. I started to see magic in the way shoots poke through the frozen ground, in the power of a work of art and in a midsummer night’s moon.

As a family, we learned to look very closely at the world around us — the smallest bugs, the smoothest rocks, the most glorious blooms — and found they inspired a most incredible sense of wonderment, like the handful of days in every life that are absolutely golden.

Magic speaks to something in the human animal that no amount of education or maturity need overcome. That’s a blessing, because those who can see the magic in daily life will also find it easier to embrace the loftier concepts of grace and faith.

If  “faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen,” how much distance really is there between the magical and the miraculous? Between elves and angels? In either case, an open and believing heart is essential.

God works in mysterious ways. A rainbow can be sunlight refracted through raindrops — or it can be a benediction. Reflected light from passing cars can be an intrusion in a darkened bedroom — or it can be fairies winging their way home.

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing,” said George Bernard Shaw.

If magic is child’s play, perhaps we should take care never to relinquish it.