By Laurie Sanderson-Walcott //
I grew up near Disneyland.
The Magic Kingdom lit my imagination with rare details at a child’s eye height. A castle, Clydesdales, a paddlewheel, intriguing smells, sound effects and music the mind would replay on its own for hours. Improbable stories come to life, just minutes from home. What felt unsafe: caves, ghosts, falling in underground waterfalls, was made safe. Unendingly patient employees encouraged the freedom to pretend that anything could happen. That the world could be a kind and hospitable place. That we could do more than we had imagined before we arrived.
As we drove home, my exhaustion was always a surprise. I found this a practical demonstration of the inarguable power of a well-told story to distract, entertain and otherwise take us beyond ourselves.
Visits to the park were a rare treat, but we lived within sight of the summer fireworks. Seeing them within the park, where their light fills the night sky is inspiring. It is amazing in its own way to see the fireworks from a distance – the variation in height, shapes, colors and patterns, fireworks elevated to an art of its own.
College classmates criticized Disneyland as “sanitized” and “fake” – colorful ambiance disguising modern offices. Peeling plaster and grime “imagineered” into place, designed to withstand cleaning. Disneyland is ‘Hollywood ersatz,’ they sniffed. For adults, gritty reality is always better.
One semester I studied in Paris, a place of genuine, extraordinary ‘real’ history throughout. Buildings do not simply seem old, they are, often with questionable plumbing. What looks at first glance like old peeling plaster and grime is legitimately so, liable to discolor clothing. Smells, good and bad, are authentic. Patience and kindness are optional.
Versailles, about an hour from Paris, is a three-palace complex of breathtaking authentic excess which inspired the bloody guillotines and other gruesome violence of the French Revolution. In July that year, the gardens around the lake at Versailles attracted a shoulder-to-shoulder crowd for a fireworks display celebrating Bastille Day, French Independence Day. I joined that evening to ponder the history and struggle for freedom, equality and brother hood, “Liberte, egalite, fraternite!”
Unforgettable fireworks, but for the wrong reasons. In addition to seeing the lit embers reflected in the lake, we saw them land in the lake. We watched them fall, still glowing, among the crowd, clad in – I realized with horror – light, flammable summer wear. “Real” fireworks. “Real” people.
Also, a “real” risk of being trampled by the panicky crowd.
Reality has value, as does non-fiction in literature. But the art of fiction allows us to focus on the point of the experience. At Versailles, reality trumped fiction. Like everyone else in the crowd, I lost all thought of Bastille Day.
Instead, I thought of the art of fireworks of Disneyland, and their ability to transport me.
Beauty for the sake of it, creativity for the sake of it, drama, comedy, and inspiration at its best – maybe doesn’t always require life-threatening “reality.”
LAURIE SANDERSON-WALCOTT is a fifth-generation proud California native. She grew up in North Orange County, graduating from Pomona College in Claremont, CA and UCSF Law in San Francisco. She’s currently working on a historical mystery – true murder, never solved, outside Mission San Gabriel in 1852. And they say Southern California has no history. Not true.
EDITED BY Fred Klein.
I love this piece. It triggers thoughts that swirl around in my head often — about a lot of things.
Sometimes, reality can sound too “fakey” to put into a novel. “A catastrophic consuming fire, on an island? Precipitated by a hurricane? Naw!” Even the positive sometimes seems too unlikely. “That kind of serendipity would never happen in real life.” But sometimes it does.
I like to take my life, turn it into fiction, and make my main character the hero I could never have been. Often I use the term Creative Non-Fiction for some of my writing. I recently have become enamored with the term autobiofiction. (I don’t think that will ever catch on.)
Truth, truly, is more uncomfortable than fiction, and it can be more frightening than a horror show because it’s real. And sometimes, we simply need our fairy godmother. Mine is the original kindly grandmotherly type from the classic Disney “Cinderella.” I buy her vintage likeness in stuffed toy version from eBay for friends experiencing hard times. I bought one for my neighbor who had cancer, and she loved it –for the time she had left. A little Disney magic makes the real bearable.
Dear Ms. Sanderson-Walcott,
Thank you for your wisdom and insight (“What Disneyland/Versailles Taught Me”). I, too, am a SoCal Resident, who has had the privilege of visiting Versailles (once) and DLand (many times).
The harmless fantasy of DLand is in sharp contrast with the palace born of real people whose heads were severed because they disagreed with that government.
Sometimes, I really appreciate what my government does, other times I am deeply frustrated. But, never have I felt that I cannot speak my mind freely about my government.
Thank you, USA!