This past Thursday we packed up the boys and my mother for a trip up the Interstate 5 to Anaheim. It was time for a visit to Disneyland.
Admittedly, we’re not a family unfamiliar with “The Happiest Place on Earth.” Both my wife and I had very fond memories of Disneyland from our childhoods and we decided that we’d like to try and give our children the same kind of memories. We’re annual pass holders, and have been since our oldest turned 2. This will sound gratuitous to some, I’m sure, but I estimate that in nearly three years, my nearly five year old son has been to Disneyland no less than 30 times.
For the record, it never gets old. Nor does it ever get stale. Maybe if I was 30, single and had no reason on Earth to be there, perhaps it would have gotten a bit passe by now. The truth is though, that watching your child enjoy Disneyland for all it’s meant to be makes going worth it every single time.
Yes, Disney does present a white-washed and homogenized version of life, but sometimes that’s what your soul needs. I’m not a Disney apologist. They don’t always get it right, and their overly-simplified values don’t always run congruent with my own; but this world needs a place like Disneyland. It needs a place where children and adults alike can just have fun. For us, Disneyland provides that escape…maybe it’s not for everyone, but for us it makes sense.
Thursday was one of those truly memorable days at Disneyland. The reason being that both my four year old and myself share an intense and deep love of Star Wars, and Thursday was the first day we got to ride the newly reopened Star Tours ride together. We waited an hour in line, the longest he’s ever waited for any ride there, and it was worth every second.
This was David’s first time riding any “big kid” ride, and Star Tours had been on the top of his list ever since he found out there was a Star Wars ride at Disneyland. He’s a short kid though, and so he never got a chance to ride it before they shut the doors to refurbish and redesign the ride. So you can imagine that riding this ride had been built up in his mind for about two years, and it was all he talked about for a long time.
The day we measured him and found out he was tall enough to ride I got goosebumps from his reaction. He threw his hands up, “Mommy! I can ride Star Tours now!” Even the most cynical bastard among us would get a good vibration from his reaction. Needless to say, for the few days leading up to Thursday’s trip, David was in a bit of a lather about the ride.
We left as early as we could, trying to get there before they ran out of Fastpasses. As it turns out, we’d have had to get there right as they opened, because we got passes, but they were for 10:45pm, and there’s no way he’d last that long. My wife and I made the judgment call to have me just take him on the ride, and deal with the hour long wait. It was one of the best decisions I’ve made as a father.
It’s very rare, you see, for a parent to know the moment they are creating a lifelong memory for both themselves and more importantly their children. I had a moment of clarity that morning that I’ll never forget. My son is at the age where lifelong memories really start to be formed. Though not everything will remain crystal clear, there’s no doubt in my mind that he will never forget the moment we walked into the main building that houses the ride, and there, right in front of him, was C-3P0 and R2D2. He was going on the ride, and he was soaking in everything.
He talked to every character as if they could hear him and would respond. I had to tell him that they were busy readying our ship, so that’s why they couldn’t respond directly to him. He didn’t seem to mind it all though; he was hyper-focused. This was it. A moment he’d be waiting for with more anticipation than anything else in his life. It was a far off prize that he thought he’d never get his hands on. Now, though, it was not only within his reach, he was grasping it, knuckles white.
As we entered the actual flight cabin and buckled in, I had a flashback to the very first time my parents buckled me in for my first space flight. I was just a little older than David is right now, and I thought for sure I was actually going to take off into the Star Wars universe. I imagine I had the same look in my eyes that David did.
As his seat belt clicked, so too did the weight of this moment. I was sharing something with my son that I too had experienced many years ago. We were connected in a way that is so very rare. We were joined together in a mutual experience that would carry life-long impact for the two us. In that moment, my son gave something to me.
He gave me the chance to time travel, about 24 years, to my first time blasting into the Star Wars universe. More than any gift I’ve ever given him, this memory means the most to me, and hopefully will mean the most to him, decades from now, and once I’ve left him to finish his story here on Earth.
May the Force be with you, Disneyland, always.
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