Day: April 27, 2007

I love the movie Hook, though I haven’t seen it in years. One of my favorite moments in the film is when the protagonist enters a room and finds an old man crawling around on the floor looking for something. The old man looks up with utmost seriousness and says, “I’ve lost my marbles.” Later in the film we find out that the man is Tootles, one of the Lost Boys grown up. We further learn that the marbles he is seeking are his happy thoughts which allow him to fly.

This week I lost my marbles. I’ve spent most of today finding them again. I looked for them during the week, but they kept slipping through my fingers and rolling away from me. This morning I carefully made sure I had pockets so that I wasn’t trying to hold them all in my hands. Then I began to search for the errant happy thoughts. I don’t have enough to fly yet, but I certainly feel much lighter.

I have so many things in my life to be grateful for. There have been many delightful events in the past few days. I didn’t do much savoring at the time. I was too busy. But because of blogging I have a unique opportunity to savor the events as I tell them to others. Blogging gives me pockets.

For example: I have Peter Pan on the brain because I’ve been reading it aloud to my kids while they eat their bedtime snack. I’ve tried previously to read this book aloud. My mother read it to me when I was a girl. Unfortunately none of the previous attempts went over well. This time they are entranced. If the evening gets busy and I attempt to put them to bed without reading from Peter Pan, the kids protest. At first it was just Link and Gleek I was reading to, but Kiki and Patches joined the nightly crew.

They sit and eat while the rich images of the story wash over them. They delight in all the descriptions and in the little comedic moments which never made the Disney film. They laugh and worry and suppose about what will happen next. They have yet to be confused or put off by the complex language that builds this marvelous story.

I too remember being entranced by Peter Pan. I remember that when my mother finished the book, we still wanted more. I’m not sure at all how my father became the one to supply it. My mother is the storyteller, but night after night we would beg my dad to tell us Peter Pan stories. Perhaps the magic in those stories was because he always put us right there in Neverland with Peter. It was not John or Wendy dancing with the redskins, it was my siblings and I. Eventually I figured out that my dad was lifting plots straight out of television shows. I’d grown too old to love the magic without analyzing it.

Now I watch my kids entranced by the same cast of characters. I don’t know that I’ll continue the tradition of Peter Pan stories once we’re done with the book. Perhaps I will, but it will have to flow naturally from me and my kids. I can’t force a joyful tradition. Perhaps instead we’ll find another delightful book.

Or perhaps we’ll rent Hook. It would be very fitting to follow a book which ends at growing up, with a movie about finding childhoood joy again.