When You Wish Upon a Star has never been one of my favorite songs. Too schmaltzy, too sentimental, and more magical than I could believe, even as a child. But--on a recent trip to Anaheim for the ALA conference, I began to reconsider...
I kept hearing that I should go to Disneyland while I was in Anaheim and I demurred. Oh, hell, no. Me, practical, not-comfortable-with-children me, go to Disneyland? "Oh, you'll like it. It's just a lot of fun." "How can you go to Anaheim and NOT go to Disneyland?" "WHY would you go to Anaheim if NOT to go to Disneyland?" Well, I was there to attend a conference. I wasn't sure I was looking forward to it. Three years ago it had been in Orlando, and that was a bust. But that's a digression best left alone.
One day at work I got an IM. C, wanting to make plans for ALA.
C: I keep hearing I should go to Disneyland.
Me: Me too. I don't know.
C: Well, the Scholarship Bash is there. We get to see the park and we donate money for scholarships.
Me: That's a pretty good cause. Well, are you in?
C: Yeah. You?
Me: ok
So we agreed she'd check on tickets when she got to California.
The night of the Bash: we meet, have beer and pub grub at her hotel, and head for the park. We'd decided to do Disneyland "Classic" instead of the Disneyland Adventure Park, just because of Tomorrowland. (We are both sci-fi fans.)
It was dusky when we got there. The part of the park you see first is Main Street USA: an old fashioned small town, what we used to call "downtown" with all the appropriate businesses--bank, post office, apothecary, restaurant. There were lights coming on--all around the signs, the windows, white lights everywhere. "One of the most magical moments of the day at Disneyland," according to the short history film we saw, hosted by Steve Martin and aided (or hindered) by Donald Duck. Steve was right--it was beautiful.
After the film we just started walking. C had it in mind to have a roast turkey leg for dinner. I wasn't going to argue with her--she is nearly twice my size (in height) and a former weightlifting champion. (We do make an interesting looking pair.) I had it in mind to ride Space Mountain but only before I had the turkey leg. When we saw the wait was 40 minutes at Space Mountain, we took off looking for turkey. On the way, I saw the rest of Tomorrowland, and this incredible sculpture masquerading as the fulcrum of a spaceship ride. The ride looked interesting, but the decoration was more fun to watch--planets and strange space structures rotating.
We found turkey, right in front of the Enchanted Castle. The crowd was amassing for the fireworks show. Public service announcements kept coming on: "We are sorry but we must postpone the fireworks show because of high winds. We will continue to evaluate the situation." After about 20 minutes of this, the fireworks started. They were AMAZING. I just stood there, stunned by the color and the light and the music, with turkey grease running down my arm. The show ran through the entire Disney canon from Peter Pan (Tinker Bell and 'When You Wish Upon a Star') to the Pirates of the Caribbean, with Star Wars (white rockets crossing each other over the castle) in there somewhere towards the end. At the end they once again played "When You Wish Upon a Star" and I felt ... something. I'm not sure what. But the Disneyland fireworks show ruined me for any other fireworks show I believe I'll ever see.
After the fireworks, we got pushed around in the crowd, and went looking for New Orleans Square. After wandering through Frontierland, we finally found it. It was charming too. We skipped Fantasyland and Critterland. But there was one problem: it was too damn dark in that park. I kept thinking, I wish I could see it in the daytime. Shortly after riding the Disneyland Express back to the park entrance, our evening visit was over. I was glad I went. I LOVED the fireworks, but walking around in the dark was a bit of a disappointment.
Even though I enjoyed it, I kept thinking I just didn't get the allure of Disneyland and the reason why millions of people from all over the world visit it every year. It was lovely, and fun, and it's a major part of American popular culture (and commerce). But I didn't get the whole "magical, innocent joy" that Walt Disney talked about in the film I saw, until the night before I left Anaheim.
That night, I went searching for a restaurant with a real wine list. I had finished my meetings and was exhausted. I didn't want to eat another dinner at a Harbor Boulevard chain restaurant with loud music and lousy food and cheap California wine. I managed to find my way to Downtown Disney after the nice but ultimately uninformed concierge at the convention center told me I'd have to take a bus and walk a while, and that it was nowhere near my hotel.
Downtown Disney is Disneyland for grownups. Shops, restaurants, generally cheesy but kind of witty architecture, beautiful landscaping. After a relatively SHORT walk to my hotel to drop off all of the convention crap, I went back for dinner. The first food I smelled was Italian, and my stomach dropped to my toes. The Napoli. Probably a chain, but it had linen tablecloths and looked relatively peaceful and open. A 20 minute wait. But, the hostess said, "if you're by yourself you can sit at the bar and have dinner." I said, "But...smoking?" "There's no smoking in any restaurant here," she said. My kind of bar! I had the crab risotto special and a very large glass of Chianti (wrong wine pairing, I know. So sue me--it was still good.). Plus a ricotta mousse and berries dessert that made me want to move to California permanently.
After dinner I wandered out of the Napoli, totally satisfied but undecided about what to do next. I sat down on a stone bench nearby, facing a tulip shaped fountain. Two little girls were playing there. Somewhere between 6 and 8 years old, I guess. Their dads were sitting nearby watching. The girls were wearing shorts and matching hot pink t-shirts with hand prints all over the front (an art project, I guess.). They started running around and around the fountain, chasing each other, squealing and giggling, dipping their hands in the water, flinging it out at each other. Total abandon. Totally caught in the moment. Total hysteria from the dads. "PHOEBE! DON'T PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE WATER!" To her credit, Phoebe completely ignored him.
After a moment, they wound down, the dads got up and they all went on. But watching those little girls, I got Disneyland. It was really about just being a happy kid, being in a pretty place that didn't look like home, and experiencing that sort of spontaneous joy that comes from doing something simple like racing around a stone tulip shaped fountain. And not caring that the water might be unsanitary.
They were probably high on sugar. And I was probably high on the Chianti. But for what it was worth, that was my magical Disneyland moment. I still want to go back and see the park in the daylight. And ride Space Mountain.
No comments:
Post a Comment