Disney Kid

It's a great privilege to be able to go to Disney World whenever I want.

People think of it as a place for families and a place to spend whatever nickels they haven't spent throughout the year on their annual vacation- to justify the dreariness of their lives by taking a break.  But I think of it as a place to explore for me to find solitude amidst the madding crowd.  And I rarely spend a nickel- except for the admission.

Yesterday someone on a boat said that the boat transport from one crowded place to another was a nice reprieve from the business of either destination.  She's right.  The boat leisurely glides along a canal as manicured golf courses, unspoiled Florida acreage and kitschy amenities, filled with frolicking tourists at a respectable distance, roll by.

I saw a dead hippo, I think....  I'm trying to consider any other reason to see a big brown/pink hippo's bulk turned on its side so that two of his spindly legs were showing.  No comment was made and I didn't want to point it out in consideration of very small children in the safari truck.... This one girl, maybe eight with huge glasses, kept repeating whatever the guide said, as if she was also very interested in whatever animal was mentioned.  But the little one mostly stared up at her Momma as we went by exotic animals on display.  I think she enjoyed the sounds of the words and looking up at Mom.

I saw seven giraffe- what's that, a legion or a grace or a bamboozle?  No, off course, there's the word- it was a tower of giraffe....  and I saw the customary flamboyance of flamingo- where are they going to go, even as the tourist birds crowd their space... and there were two baby gorilla.  The whole whoop, band or tribe was out front right by the windows where the Dad used to hold court alone, guarding the entrance to his protectorate.  The two babies were between adults but allowed to play in any way they wanted, rolling around and becoming aware of how their limbs worked and the similarities and differences of oneself and a similar other.

I also say a lady who couldn't fit through a turnstile.  The cast member kindly pointed out how to walk around it, and the poor thing teared up silently, and recomposed herself a couple times during the trip.  On the bus, which also provides a nice reprieve from jostling, the fathers were very concerned about their active children bumping into people they didn't know.  Some Japanese tourist, maybe 23, rested her head barely perceptively on my shoulder in sleep and I wondered why those Dads think that they are responsible for every movement of a happy kid's meanderings.  Would the sky open up and God proclaim the man a bad father if a four year old accidentally touched somebody they didn't know?

Sometimes I think that parents shouldn't even bother to keep track of the kids at all, and just go do whatever they want, and then at the end of the day, somebody could just make sure that each family goes home with the same number of kids that they brought with them that day.