“To all who come to this happy place – welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, dreams and the hard facts that have created America … with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.” – Walter E. Disney, July 17, 1955

When Walt Disney opened Disneyland over 60 years ago, he welcomed visitors from around the world into a place where magic lived around every corner.  Stepping through the turnstile meant entering another realm, one where you could dance with a prince, hug a tigger, and ride on a flying elephant.  The gleaming castle in the middle of the park invited children and adults to make a wish.

The movies created by Disney, and his descendants, expanded the magic of Disneyland onto screens in every town.  And eventually onto screens in the palm of your hand.  The pink frosted flowers in a neighbor’s yard reminded me of one of those movies: Fantastia. One story from that movie is about woodland fairies who transform their forest.  Their presence among flowers causes blooms to close.  Leaves blend from green to orange and red, before some begin descending to the ground.  And snowflakes fill the sky as Tchaikovsky’s Waltz of the Flowers reaches a fevered pitch.  And then the screen darkens so that only a maestro’s arms are seen as he directs the final music notes.

The magic of Disney invites guests to see magic everywhere.  Maybe you believe that the change in seasons is due to the rotation of the earth in relation to the sun.  Or maybe it is caused by creatures dancing among the trees when humans are not looking.  Or it is all due to some completely other reason.  Does the method mean it cannot also be beautiful, and just a little bit magical?

Or lets take this topic away from the global and place it much smaller.  As I write these words, its is a specific time on a specific date.  And other than me, no one in the entire world is going to read these words on that specific time and date.  Instead they will travel into the inboxes and onto the screens of others, to be read and considered who knows when or where.  To write and to read is to be part of time travel.

While these words are being shared electronically, they could also be printed onto a physical page, by myself or anyone else, and then shared other ways.  They could be turned into sound waves and spoken in person, on the phone, or into a recording that will be heard at an unknown time.  They could be mailed, with full confidence that the finger prints on the envelope will be there on the other side of however many roads, state lines, or oceans it crosses.  They could be faxed, which I seriously still view as an amazing invention.  A picture on a physical piece of paper is placed into a machine, and another machine creates a mirror image on another physical piece of paper.

I get that all of these little examples are just science and just normal life.  But can’t normal life be magical?  Can’t pink frost be the work of fairies?  I choose make believe.