Dear Mr. Disney,
I went to Disneyland a couple of weeks ago with my boyfriend, Cody. You see, there were several purposes for this trip:
1. College was gonna start soon for me and we wanted to have fun.
2. We both had not so great times during our respective grad nights and we wanted to make better memories there. (Grad night is a day where the graduating class of a high school goes on a long field trip to a fun location. It’s typically a 3 a.m. teenage foray to an amusement park of the school’s choice.)
3. Before grad night, I went to Disneyland only once before (that I remember), and during that trip, I didn’t drink enough water, got severely dehydrated and was hospitalized the following day. So I wanted a proper day at Disneyland.
But for Cody, going to Disneyland had less to do with grad night and trauma, and more to do with his childhood. He grew up going to Disneyland and he experienced the “magic” that Disneyland often boasts, so going to there was more to re-experience the magic of his childhood and to share that magic with me.
Personally — and I mean no offense, Mr. Disney — I expected to experience little to no magic, mostly because I was, in essence, an adult. I was thinking about adultish things, like the money that was needed in order to feel “magic” and the cheesiness of the rides, stores and attractions.
But what surprised me was that when I went to Disneyland with Cody, I felt a different kind of magic than what was often being advertised. The magic I expected was the magic that we were supposed to take at face value: seeing the super cool rides, the decorations, the people in costumes, and the various stores and attractions scattered around the park.
Instead, I found magic where most people weren’t looking: behind the scenes. There was magic in the effort that was put into these cheesy rides, stores and attractions, and a magical atmosphere arose as a result.
I found that the most magic came from the two light attractions: the Light Parade and the fireworks. When I saw the Light Parade, all I could think about was the planning that had to go into it. Every performer knew how to dance in sync, where to be, what to say, and how to look to the audience.
The magic in that was the sheer complexity of what they were doing combined with the pure joy that they radiated while doing it. There fireworks show was completely magical, not only because of the beauty and the magnitude of the show but because of the time put into synchronizing the fireworks with the songs and the props.
Above all, what really got me was the small speech with which they introduced the fireworks. It went something like this: “Just imagine, if you were standing right here over 60 years ago, you’d be standing in the middle of an orange grove. One visionary man stood right where you are now, but instead of orange trees, he envisioned a magic kingdom. This man’s name was Walt Disney, and his dream would be called Disneyland.”
Then the sky was lit up with explosions of light, and the magic came to life for me. Magic wasn’t only the pretty colors and extravagant light shows, but it was turning a grove of orange trees into a place of dreams. You, Mr. Disney, brought magic into a place where everyone else just saw an endless supply of vitamin C, and every day the magic you first planted into that soil grows in the hearts of every kid that passes its gates.
Mr. Disney, the magic you nurtured at Disneyland is so strong that the kids who grew up visiting the park would, later on, return looking for that same magic. The hard part of returning is that the kids visited long ago have inevitably grown up, and the magic is a little different for them. For Cody, going to Disneyland was two parts nostalgia and one part sadness. He couldn’t quite find the magic that he felt when he was a kid, and though he accepts that he’s grown up, some part of him still wants to feel the all-encompassing awe of being at the most magical place on earth.
It sucks becoming an adult and losing a bit of the magic, but I told Cody that things don’t stop being magical when you grow up. Disneyland is still awesome and endlessly magical in many ways, we just need to look a little harder.
Even though we as adults know that there isn’t really a talking mouse or a foot tall fairy flying over a castle, we can still see that real people put immense effort into creating the feeling of magic.
Creating the feeling of magic without a single bit of real magic has got to be magical in and of itself, and I told him that yes, we won’t see Disneyland the same as we did when we were kids, but that doesn’t mean that the magic didn’t happen nor does it mean that the magic will never happen again. Finding new magic doesn’t mean paving over the old. It means adding more magic to our lives in ways that will still inspire awe, no matter how old we are.
Long story short, magic is a hard thing to find nowadays. Thanks to you, Mr. Disney; there’s one place on earth where magic is a little easier to find. And gosh darn it, we found it.
