Keys To The Kingdom

Wednesday morning my phone alerted me to Captain Kidd's breakfast buffet, including a number of four and five star reviews. This came as a happy reminder of where my family and friends had been just days earlier. Hopping out of bed and rushing up the stairs next door to shovel in a bowl of raisin bran and a piece of fruit before racing back down the stairs and across the street to the parking lot of the Happiest Place On Earth had been our experience over the Presidents' Day weekend. We were there to experience a joy-filled stimulus-packed couple of days in the Magic Kingdom. Those days started with Captain Kidd's.
There was a bit of a hangover as well. Dropping myself back into the working week after that blur of activity was a bit of a challenge. Our son, who revels in Disney because it is the wellspring of his pop culture, felt similarly the day he woke up and there were no Froot Loops in a paper bowl before embarking on a search of the shortest lines and multiple trips on the Jungle Cruise. For those of us who woke up on Tuesday with no days left on our park hopper passes, it was back to work. Sure, we had memories. We had photos. We had the souvenir maps that we could count off the attractions and rides that we experienced in those two magical days.
Did I mention magic?
If I didn't, I should. For my family and me there is a place where our cares and woes drift away. It is a place where we can find something to divert our attentions from the cares and woes that weigh us down on any given day. While we are there, we don't concern ourselves with the cost of everything and the overarching corporation that binds this universe together. If anything, we surrender to the Disneyness of it all and let ourselves be swept away in the animatronic pseudo-reality of it all. I know that I have consciously made this a place where I park my cynicism and curmudgeonly world view. I am not looking for the edge of the backdrop or the strings holding the puppets from the ceiling. I know they are there. I want an oasis, and this is mine.
When the alarm went off and I found myself meandering blearily into my own kitchen for a bowl of granola on the way to face another day in the work week, I sighed. And I remembered those breakfasts at Captain Kidd's. I know there is a place for me and those I hold close to get away. Does it have to be Disneyland?
No. But it sure is a magical place.