The Door to Narnia

What if every room had a magical escape portal?  Many books and movies geared towards children contain just this concept…a doorway for a child to leave their reality and enter another. Narnia, Wonderland, even the movie Coralline give children a specific way to escape. But why do children need a way to escape? Isn’t childhood the very place to which many adults tease they wish they could take a portal? Perhaps those adults hold a memory of childhood skewed by nostalgia and as children they also had some concerns, problems, worries, and unrest regarding their future just as they do now.

Or perhaps instead of wanting to actually be a child, adults just wish they had a way to still believe in Wonderland. I suppose as an adult it is common to have a lessened capacity to absorb fantasy as reality, so many use books or movies as a way to escape to another world. Well, except for me. I literally have a clear fantasy of taking off to Never Never Land. And when I say literally (because I know the meaning of literally) I mean that I lay there in the grey morning hours when I am still sleepy but not quite awake and imagine myself flying over the sparkling blues and greens of the Island debating where to visit first. Mermaid Lagoon usually wins, in case you were wondering.

This makes me wonder if it is the active imagination in some other dreamers and me that makes us grit our teeth at the thought of being interrupted while reading. I have written about this gargantuan pet peeve of mine before but somehow it always comes up because it just KEEPS HAPPENING! An interruption mid page is the equivalent of a giant (well-meaning though completely annoying) hand reaching into Wonderland, grabbing Alice by her hair, plucking her right out of there and sitting her on a plain bench on an ordinary day to talk to her about the weather. The next time you visit a library or a book store watch what happens when all the people reading are suddenly interrupted by someone who has no control over the volume of their voice. All the readers jump from the disturbance of the silence and the disturbance of the story that was unfolding in their head.

Granted, most of the stories that provide an escape to children are driving towards the lesson of “there is no place like home.” Whether this forced turn-off from the magical other world stems from a psychotic queen, a fake mom who steals children’s eyes or the demise of a beloved lion (whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy??????) the fantasy land is ultimately proven to be uninhabitable and less preferable to the safety of home. This brings me back to my love of Peter Pan. Although Wendy determines that having the security and love of family in the real world is best for a child, it is also revealed that retaining an active imagination and holding on to some of the innocence of childhood are the good strategies to having a more fulfilling adult life.

I maintain that it is best to keep an open mind to any ideas or possibilities. Whether it be alternate worlds, alien life forms, God, or just ultimate happiness, those abstract ideas keep our personal portal to Narnia open and our lives enriched.