What's Real in a World of Illusion

I’m at a Disney World Resort, sitting on a patio on a “boardwalk”, eating lunch by myself in the same place I ate lunch by myself yesterday.  I’m here because I tagged along with my husband and five other women for a work conference.  If you read my post yesterday, you have permission to laugh.  In light of a series of recent conversations, it seems that this was intended to be the backdrop for Heidi’s 2017 Brokenness Retreat.  First, last, and only.  Hopefully.

This seems so ironic, because the last time I was here was 23 years ago.  I arrived with my high school show choir, the day after the accident which claimed my mom’s mobility.  I didn’t want to go, but everyone convinced me it was best.  Disney is known as a magical place.  I know it as a world other than my own, but maybe not quite magical.  Not at first. 

I have to admit, I have felt a surprisingly strong resistance to the “unrealness” of the place I’m staying, The Boardwalk Inn.  The buildings are real, the water is real, and the wood that makes up the “boardwalk” is real.  But, the “boardwalk” goes in a circle around a manmade lagoon, has a lighthouse, and a beach with a concrete beginning and end.

And I think to myself, “Hey.  You’re not tricking me.”  This is an approximation, a fabrication, and a manipulation.  I’m not settling into this fictitiousness.  I have a passion for real (nevermind I believe my fears with no basis in reality, without a second thought).  But, I work to shed pretense, not live in it.  This is not what I’m about.  Not that I can’t relax here, but don’t think I’m buying it for a minute.

And then, beginning with this little lunch spot, real things started to happen. 

Yesterday, it was the guy proposing to his girlfriend thirty feet from where I was sitting, and a couple from the North of England, who are on their fourth generation of making memories here, in a place that is magical for them.  Then, my aunt came to visit, whom I haven’t seen for years, and we connected in ways heretofore unimagined.  

Here, in this place that is made to look like someplace else.

Today, when I came back to my new favorite spot, my waitress greeted me with, “How’s your retreat going?  Unsweet iced tea, again?”  And I felt seen and known, at least a little.  The couple sitting next to me were from Atlantic City, where the real boardwalk is, and they told me the funniest thing.  They prefer this one!  Hahaha!  And the fake “boardwalk” grew a little more real. 

I thank Cathy, my waitress, and my lunch neighbors, Roger and Iva, for making that happen.  I thank 35-year Disney employee, Kennedy from the Bronx, who remembered seeing his first clean street here, for answering that he’s “magical” every time he’s asked, welcoming everyone home, and handing out stickers until the tendons in his wrist beg him to stop.  

And, thank you to my real lunch date, the very real grackle coveting my very real tortilla chips, as the most likely source for his next very real meal.  

Thank you all for being the magic in my Disney experience.

Walt Disney said, “I don’t want the public to see the world they live in while they’re in the park.  I want them to feel they’re in another world.”  I can see that he’s succeeded.  But, I can also see that the magic in my world will always come from the people in it.