Redux

Welcome back to the Magic Kingdom

It’s been a month since we returned from our late August family trip to Walt Disney World. We packed up fourteen of the family— kids, grandkids, husbands, respective others— and trekked off down to Orlando in the blazing heat. Hot, humid, crowded, and, yes, amazing, it was all that we wanted it to be. It even exceeded our expectations in many ways. But that’s not what I want to talk about here. No, I want to talk about the unexpected jolt of nostalgia I received one night, along with a little bit of melancholy, too.

Any trip to see the Mouse is going to be jam-packed with activity. This, like all of the other trips we have had to WDW, ended up with us looking afterwards for some well earned R&R from our vacation. We hit all four parks, trick or treated at a Halloween Party (hence the pumpkins and Halloween theming in the pic above), swam at a water park, saw fireworks, weathered the inevitable melt downs from kids (and adults), and, in short, made a lifetime worth of memories. And we have them all recorded for posterity in a shared album that has nearly 500 pictures and videos.

We did it up right.

But out of all of the airport disasters, frenzied races to get to the SkyLiner or Monorail or bus, frustrating kid corralling in queues, wolfed down dinners, and joyful ride riding, one moment stood out for me as different, a second of reflection that existed outside of the family flow, one that forced me to take stock in, of all things, mortality, time, and growth. It’s funny how these moments, often brief, leave the biggest imprints on your soul.

For me, my moment came on Wednesday night. My grown daughters, 31 and 28, had asked if we could maybe take an evening and enter the parks just the three of us. It would be a chance to relive a trip I took with them thirteen years ago, when my oldest had graduated from high school. I was a single dad then, and our trip was marked by its insane pace and copious amounts of joy. We really did have a blast, so I was particularly excited to take to the parks with my girls again.

We decided, based on the time limits we had, to just do the Magic Kingdom. It made sense, as my oldest once worked in the park as a college intern, and we all had fond memories of visiting her (another trip, two years after the big graduation trip). We agreed early Wednesday morning on meeting after dinner, and then set off on our separate ways for a crazy day in Epcot.

At four in the afternoon my wife and I returned to our resort (Pop Century if you’re keeping score) and relaxed after a long day of running to rides and walking the park. I really do love Epcot the most, but, man, we walked! After our recharge, my wife struck out for the pool, and I headed off to the bus that would take me to the Magic Kingdom. I have to admit that as we approached the front gates I was giddy with anticipation. I just hadn’t taken into consideration that neither of my girls was yet in the park.

As I walked down Main Street USA, I followed a family of three. Mom and Dad, sweating bullets in matching Mickey and Minnie tee shirts, holding hands with a little girl all decked out in a princess outfit, tiara in place. It was sweet, really. As they turned off into one of the shops that line the Magic Kingdom’s main thoroughfare, I texted both of my girls, wondering where we would meet up for dinner. It took a few minutes for their responses, so by the time I heard from them hunger was getting the best of me It didn’t take long after I heard that neither one was anywhere near the park (one had just returned to the resort with her boyfriend, the other was eating dinner with her husband and sons at Epcot) for me to beeline it to Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe where I was soon elbow deep in a truffle French onion cheeseburger (surprisingly good). As the animatronic alien Sunny Eclipse belted out show tunes, I sat in the corner people watching. Apparently, we had not coordinated as well as I thought we had. They assured me they would hustle to meet me, though, and that they were sorry for the miscommunication. I sat back, listened to Sunny, and finished my burger.

So I was now faced with some free time in Disney, which is definitely not a hard thing to deal with. I wandered out of Tomorrow Land and crossed the bridge past Cinderella’s Castle, sauntered into Adventure Land past the Jungle Cruise (60 minute wait…ugh) and the Swiss Family Robinson Tree House— as a side note, amazingly, people still climb the tree house, even when the heat index is up over 100. I did not climb, but, rather, walked on a few hundred feet and settled on a bench right outside of the Enchanted Tiki Room to wait.

OK, full disclosure, I didn’t just wait; I DID go into the Tiki Room and sat through a show. It’s as campy and politically incorrect as ever, the birds still creak when they move to the beat, and the theme song is a damn ear worm (“In the Tiki, Tiki, Tiki, Tiki, Tiki Room…”), but I have to say I loved it. So many memories, memories of when I first saw the clunky robotic birds as a boy nearly fifty years ago, then when I took my girls there as kids, and then again as teenagers. Even though we all acknowledge that it’s a throwback, and not high on our lists, the Tiki Room is one of those experiences that root a person to a place and a time. I was grateful to have done it.

But I was surprised, probably foolishly, when ten minutes later I watched from my bench as both of my children hustled towards our rendezvous outside of the Pirates of the Caribbean. It was hard to put a finger on where my surprise came from, but I think it had to do with how different things were now. Somewhere in my mind I still saw them as children, wide eyed and buzzing with excitement as we flew through the park, but now they were different, adults, with adult concerns and, while still excited, it was the tempered excitement of grown ups. They weren’t just thrilled with our plans to do Pirates, Haunted Mansion, and Space Mountain, they were also concerned with if their kids were asleep yet, or if their significant others were ok without them. It made me sad in a nostalgic, parental way— they weren’t just my girls anymore, they were parts of bigger wholes that only peripherally included me. In that singular moment I missed the old them. The old us.

And we did all of those rides, and more. We packed a lot into our three hours together, almost as much as we had done in that earlier time. It wasn’t the raw exuberance of that past trip, though that was still there, but it was layered somewhere under all of those other concerns. Yes, we laughed on Space Mountain, just like the old days (we even reenacted our rider pic, a nice touch for all of us). We pointed out the pirate’s hairy leg on Pirates, and reminisced about the jump scares in the Haunted Mansion’s graveyard. It was nice, but different.

I guess it’s best summed up by this one moment. We posed for a Disney Photographer outside of the Haunted Mansion, and took some really cool shots. Unfortunately, the accounts got mixed up, and we never were able to retrieve those pics. Too bad, really, because it would have been nice to have the keepsake. But, like the past trips, that moment was relegated to memory, soon to be converted into nostalgia. Am I happy for the moments I got to spend with my daughters? Absolutely. Do I realize now that those moments were never going to recapture the moments— those golden moments— when we were all younger and maybe a bit more innocent? Yes.

And mortality wasn’t too far behind in my thinking. It’s not a long jump from how it was in the old days to “Wow, I’m getting older.” Or, “Wow, they’re the adults and I’m the old guy.” It gave me pause, and it reinforced what we all really know: we’re only here for a flicker and then we’re gone. Make the most of it, right? We can’t be sure how many times we will do this thing again, if ever. As the night ended, and we trudged onto the bus to the resort a happy, exhausted trio, I could see it. Bits of the past still clung to us, but they weren’t the top layer anymore. They were hidden inside each of us. I know we all took something different from our night together, but the one thing we shared was that we did, in fact, have that night together. Older versions of our younger selves.

The saying goes that you can’t go home again. Or is it that you can’t relivethe past (thank you, Nick Carraway)? Either way, they’re both true. You can’t really do either. But you can visit from time to time. You can walk down those joyful, mist shrouded lanes and, if you imagine hard enough, still feel the grasp of your daughters holding your hands as you approach Space Mountain. You can sing with corny animatronic birds. And you can cherish what you once had, even if it’s different now.