The Spirit of Peter Pan

This came to me this morning, when thinking about the James Barrie quote on Nika’s birthday card:

Wishing is like fishing,
you have to be prepared
and go down to where the fish are biting.

A little folksy wisdom which I may or may not inscribe in her card!

I didn’t need any folksy wisdom as a child to fall under the spell of Peter Pan and Tinker Bell. To this day I am still under the spell of the story as it unfolded on the big screen that summer night in Winnipeg before the eyes of an 8 year old boy on the occasion of his birthday.

My mother had roused me shortly after I went to bed to tell me that her friend a few streets away was taking her son Bruce to see the film as a birthday present and that we were going to join them. I don’t remember the journey downtown, but we would have had to take the streetcar, as that was the route along the Henderson Highway from East Kildonan in the early 50’s. If I have my facts right, it would have been the summer of 1954.

I can’t remember any other occasion where I was taken by either parent to a movie, although mom took me one summer to see a gala outdoor production of The King and I at Rainbow Stage.

We didn’t have television in those days, and I don’t remember ever having seen a movie before. If I did, the impact was nothing compared to the impact this had on me. The whole experience was like waking up in a Technicolor dream and staying awake afterwards.

The impish spirit of Peter entered into my child’s body and I became him. In the days to follow I mimicked his sword play with Hook using a wooden stick, leapt from the bed and from the garden fence rail intent on levitating and flying around.

I had fallen in love with Tinker Bell and I was determined never to grow up and grow old.

The spirit of Peter still lives strong in me and as I look back over my life, I see now he did succeed in teaching me how to fly.

I could never have imagined such an adventure!