This Isn't Disneyland
By Fay Gordon
@fay316
Standing on my tiptoes, I peer out the tinted windows and marvel at the pastel pink and yellow tea cups dancing through the trees below. The Disneyland Monorail takes off, and as we glide past the snow capped Matterhorn, I reach for my dad’s hand in excitement. My five-year-old self can’t believe my luck: we’re actually here.
Just a month earlier, in a desperate attempt to squash my sibling rivalry, my parents resorted to a tried-and-true behavior incentive: the Star Chart. “Be nice to your sister every day, for a month, and you get a special day. A day to do anything you want.”
Anything I want?
“I want to go to Disneyland,” I said, pressing the 30th metallic star onto the red construction paper.
In that moment, faced with their child’s impossible request, a parent has two choices: 1) find a way to creatively deliver, or 2) punt to a “teachable moment”—you can’t always get what you want.
Much to my delight, my parents delivered.
Sort of.
We did go to Disneyland. Each month, on my special day, my dad drove the 15 miles to Anaheim. We spent the afternoon riding the Monorail around the park, capping the day off with a cookie and soda treat at the Monorail Café (crucially, all activities open to the non-ticket paying public).
I loved these special days. I can still feel the anticipation of the freeway exit, the thrill of an early dessert, the bliss of an afternoon with my dad in a magical place. Still, after a few months of riding around the park, I knew enough to understand it wasn’t quite the full Magic Kingdom experience. Eventually, one afternoon, I looked down at my soda and pushed the glass aside. “Dad, this isn’t Disneyland.”
When my family re-tells this story, we laugh at the absurdity of it all. My naivete, the two of us riding around the park, and my eventual declaration that it wasn’t the real deal.
Lost in retelling is the truth: I wasn’t upset. Those afternoons meant everything to me. I just wanted to let them know I got it. Of course my parents couldn’t give me monthly trips to Disneyland. At five, I couldn’t articulate what I really wanted: time and attention, the magic ingredients to making a child feel special. I may have asked for the theme park, but on those afternoons, my parents gave me exactly what I needed.
***
Thirty years later, I shiver and adjust my sweater, searching for warmth, in a hospital pre-op waiting room. It’s Friday, March 13, 2020. The maroon vinyl chair and television blare provide little comfort for my anxious nerves. The morning news anchors are breathless, struggling to keep up with the rapidly changing national emergency. I glance at my phone. A reminder for Diego’s Storyteller Cafe Birthday Brunch pops up for 12:30 pm. I breathe, frustrated I neglected to delete the reminder.
My son’s birthday is March 12. Months earlier, my husband and I hatched a plan to surprise Diego with a third birthday trip to Disneyland. We saved hotel points, scoured Disney blogs, and eagerly anticipated his first trip to the park.
In early March, as the world tumbled toward a pandemic, my personal health took an unrelated, but also unexpected, turn. I needed a major surgery, brutal news to process in normal circumstances. When the surgeon shared, “we have an opening in the OR,” I was relieved, until she added: “If we move quickly, I can fit you in on March 13.” My heart sank.
Diego’s third birthday. I pictured his piercing blue eyes. The little voice that whispered, “is it the doctor?” when I picked up the phone and listened to my diagnosis. The tender soul of a toddler who knew something was up, despite all our efforts to keep his breakfast-daycare-dinner-bedtime routine “normal.
“We have to have a fake birthday,” I told my husband, David, as we emailed friends my health update. We needed a new plan, an early substitute celebration, but I was stuck. When I tried to read the surgery packet, my mind drifted to the lost anticipation of watching Diego enjoy his first Dole Whip.
I was in no place to plan a party.
Incredibly, our friends stepped in as I was floundering. They surprised Diego with an early birthday celebration, complete with sparkly gold party hats and plates of chocolate cupcakes. Under a metallic banner, we sang happy birthday, and for a brief moment, we celebrated in spite of the chaos.
In the frigid waiting room, I pull up his birthday video on my phone. I cringe when I notice my fake smile, standing behind Diego. I was grinning through the pain of my sadness, the knowledge that his birthday, the year, all of it, was not what we anticipated.
I look out the hospital window. Spring blossoms peek through naked trees and white tents line the driveway. There’s a flurry of activity, and a construction crew builds a temporary triage center for the COVID-19 surge.
This isn’t Disneyland, I think.
I press play on the video again. This time, I focus on Diego. He lights up the moment the cupcakes appear. He claps, surveys a room of people who adore him, and his face reflects the candlelight and care. His joy is evident through the screen, he is awed by the attention. March 12th or March 8th, Disneyland or the dinner table, the distinction is meaningless at this moment. Surrounded by friends and cupcakes, he has all of our attention, our time, and love—everything I had hoped to give him for his third birthday.
***
A month later, I sink into the living room sofa at my parents’ house. The surgery went well, and I’m finally off all medication. I sip a crisp glass of buttery chardonnay, and listen to David and my dad discuss the wild California housing market. Diego unfurls his beach towel in front of the coffee table.
“Time to go to the beach!” he declares, and pulls down his 3T sweatpants, lathering himself with imaginary sunscreen.
My dad puts on Hawaiian music. David grabs a beach bucket and plops down on the towel.
“Wow, Diego, the sun, it feels so good,” David says.
“And the waves, so relaxing,” my mom adds.
I imagine how ridiculous the scene looks: four adults, gazing off at an imaginary horizon, pretending to picnic at the beach. Diego, meanwhile, is in sheer bliss. This after dinner game is now part of our quarantine routine, a creative solution to Diego’s daily requests for a beach trip.
After all, the beach is closed. Everything is closed. Faced with the same star chart conundrum of decades ago, we slip into pretend-mode and make the beach happen, even if it isn’t the real thing.
I’m tempted to say 2020 taught me flexibility, to innovate and remember the bigger picture when I desperately want to give my child something that is just not possible. But I learned that long ago, zooming past the Matterhorn, when I realized my parents would do whatever they could to make my wishes a reality.
I lean back in my “beach chair,” and smile at my parents. They squint at the imaginary sun and breathe in the ocean mist.
It isn’t the beach.
It isn’t Disneyland.
But it is love, and a little bit of imagination, to make our child’s desire a reality. As Diego scoops imaginary sand onto his towel, I wonder when he’ll call us out on this ruse. I wonder when he’ll notice all the ways we do the best we can, even if we can’t do exactly as we always hope. Somewhere, in his three-year-old heart, I hope he knows that while this “beach” is not real, our love is. I hope he knows that his dreams matter to us, and we will do whatever we can to make them a reality—even this year, especially this year— with a little imagination and creativity.