100 Days of Wonder – #92
I’ve been thinking about two things today. The first is the idea of less doing and more being and the other is constant change. They’re not necessarily related but at the moment in my head they are because, with just over a week to go I am in Disney mode. It’s probably unbearable for anyone else but my Disney mode as been activated (wait, what? It’s always active, it’s just got a boost). So at Disney the temptation is definitely to be doing. I have commented in previous posts about planning and ticking things off a list and rushing from ride to ride or attraction and how I don’t really get it. But not rushing things and not having a list to tick off, doesn’t mean we are not ‘doing’ heavy. And sometimes being doing focused means that you forget to be right there in the moment. Often if you are doing, you’re not really being. Doing means you start and finish something. Doing has outcomes. That’s why I bake or cook when anxiety is high, that’s why doing admin work and being busy is great when you’re stressed because it feels like you are taking action and sorting things out. And sometimes, doing is of course exactly what is required. But often what we actually need is less doing and being busy and more being, more acknowledging the moment we are in right now, more breathing, more presence.
At Disney there is always something new (looking forward to seeing the Moana inspired Journey of Water this time), and that increases the temptation to do. Every trip there has been something new to see or do, a new ride, or even a whole new area such as Toy Story Land or Galaxy’s Edge. That temptation to ‘do’ those things so easily slips into pressure and a feeling of disappointment if we don’t manage it. And I just never want Disney to be about that. It’s not about doing for me, it’s about being there. Of course I like to do things but I want to do them fully present. I want to consciously be while I am doing the things. Most of the new attractions we didn’t do the first visit after they opened. The queues were too long, the areas around them too busy. It took years for us to ride the 7 Dwarf Mine Train and we didn’t go on Flight of Passage in 2017 because, frankly I won’t stand in a queue for 4 hours for anything. We walked through Galaxy’s Edge in 2023 but we didn’t go on the rides. We’re quite good at focusing more on being and just enjoying being together, soaking it all in and letting the stories play out in our heads.
I chose the picture of the Tree of Life from January 2023 because it is both about doing new things and the constant changes at Disney and about being rather than doing. I think it was our first full day and we were both pretty tired. We couldn’t decide whether to stay for the Tree of Life Awakening light show. We’d never seen it although I think it has been running since 2016 so there would have been at least 2 trips where we could have seen it. So it was something new, something cool to see and do. But it also felt like we were staying just for the sake if it when we actually wanted to go back to the resort and go to bed. In the end we had about 45 minutes before the show and it somehow seemed silly to leave so we found a spot, sat ourselves down and just people watched for a bit. Leaning against a tree I think, or maybe a low wall, we both nodded off for a bit. We were leaning on each other and just enjoying being together without really doing anything. We nearly forgot we were waiting for the show and we definitely forgot we were surrounded by 1000s of other people. The show itself was wonderful. We stood up when it began and watched in wonder, in our own little bubble, just us, alone in a sea of people. Then we went ‘home’ and fell into bed happy. Moments like that are where the magic is!
100 Days of Wonder – #91
I forgot yesterday! After 90 days of really diligently remembering and wanting to blog – sometimes, but not that often, writing several posts at once and scheduling them, yesterday I just never thought about it. Maybe just a symptom of being in the post Christmas, pre New Year liminality. In my defence I didn’t feel great yesterday. Nothing specific, just a weird sort of meh (Kath said I was Eyore-ish). And, I was lost in my book in a way that happens rarely because I now so rarely read for pleasure. .
So here’s me and the Bear of Very Little Brain in 2019 to remind myself not to be cross with myself for breaking the run. Instead I am being kind, marvelling at the fact that I did 90 posts in a row without missing one and just giving you this post with another to follow this evening. I’m also acknowledging that the is joy and wonder to be had in days just lost to being and reading and that yesterday was not a wasted day but a proper rest day. I think the Bear would approve. I’m also quite excited now about seeing Winnie the Pooh again soon. He gives reassuring hugs and once tried to kidnap Kath’s Mum – but maybe that’s a whole other story.
Happy whatever day it is today!
100 Days of Wonder – #90
Now that Christmas and birthday are done, we enter that weird time between Christmas and New Year. The old not quite done, the new not quite here. You get glimpses of the possibilities and potential of what is to come but you’re also not quite ready to let go of what was. I love this liminality. I love being in liminal spaces, maybe because of the promise of endless possibilities and new adventures that they hold. There’s the possibility of new ways of thinking, new ways of doing things, of positive change and discovery but at this point there is no risk, no threat of chucking the baby out with the bathwater and abandon the good in the pursuit of the new. Liminal is uncertain, yes, but it’s exciting.
Disney World is incredibly good at creating spaces that, to me anyway, feel very liminal. There are no harsh endings and beginning just lots of transitions. You can see it everywhere. For example as you walk from the Contemporary Resort to the Magic Kingdom, you move along the path and it’s very resort like but you transition to Magic Kingdom park bit by bit as you walk along the path with commemorative bricks, through security, past themed bins, under the railways arches and into Main Street USA. As you walk under the arches there is a change and the opening up into Main Street is as close as you will come to a big reveal – but it doesn’t feel jarring or sudden. It feels like you have been building to it and when you get there you are ready. You see it in the parks with the transitions between worlds. You can linger with the magic of the castle right until you are carried away by the anticipation of Tomorrowland. Or, if you go the other way, you can feel the pixie dust right until the excitement of Adventureland hits. You never feel like you have to exit, or stop, instead you transition easily, comfortably and without ever breaking the spell from one story into the next. You also see it within rides. You transition through a liminal not quite park, not quite ride space as you make your way through the queue and somehow it keeps the magic alive. My brain really likes the lack of stopping and starting different things and the encouragement to just flow from one to the other through these spaces that are both nothing and the places you came from and the places you are going at the same time. It seems I like being in-between – where nothing has yet finished and anything is possible.
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