Relish Those Little Moments of Magic

on wonder and chasing travel highs

wonder number one: glass-like water at Mirror Lake, Yosemite

Observe the wonders as they occur around you. Don't claim them. Feel the artistry moving through and be silent. —Rumi

I think most travelers can pinpoint a moment where their sense of wonder faded. For me, it happened at Disneyland.

My dad was mildly Disneyland-obsessed. He used to gush about how immersive the experience was, and how the park was spotless despite seeing tens of thousands of visitors per day (“it’s just so freaking clean,” he’d say). Referring to it simply as “D-Land,” he and my mom took me as often as they could. We would pile into the car in the wee hours of the morning—sometimes with aunts and uncles and cousins, sometimes with a school friend in tow, other times just the three of us—and stuff it with pillows and blankets and junky snacks. Then we’d blast down Highway 5 to make it to L.A. by first light. The idea was for the kids to nap in the car and wake up ready to hit all the best rides, but how could we sleep knowing what awaited us?

Disneyland was pure, unadulterated magic. The park gates were a portal into the pages of a fairy tale, with the pastel tableau of Cinderella’s castle at its center. The smallest details were accounted for to ensure the real world couldn’t come crashing through—even the trash cans were decorated meticulously so as not to jar visitors out of their reverie—and the staff (whom Disney calls “cast members”) went to great lengths to maintain the illusion. When I was a toddler with a towhead bowl cut stuffed under a Mickey-ear cap, Goofy stopped by our breakfast table and we chatted with bananas held up to our ears, pretending they were phones. Years later, I lost a light-up rose on the now-defunct Rocket Rods and was inconsolable. The operator stopped the ride to check the seat back pockets of every last car, and when he couldn’t find my rose, he walked me down to the vendor, who gifted me a replacement.

But the best was when we got early entry to the park. We would arrive an hour before it officially opened, when it was still balmy and quiet. I remember the giddiness that early entry induced: a lightness in my chest, an electricity in my veins, the sense that my feet couldn’t possibly carry me fast enough into the depths of this enchanted universe.

I remember a day when I was around thirteen years old—that painful age where you start to question everything—when I walked into Disneyland and waited for the familiar, heady buzz. Then I waited a little longer, and I waited some more. The feeling never came. As I wandered the theme park, it was just that: a theme park, no longer a fantasy come to life. It was as though some critical element of my soul, the part that allowed me to experience exhilaration and astonishment, had shriveled. Like the well-oiled cogs that once animated me had rusted and ground to a halt.

This was a part of growing up I hadn’t bargained for. I worried that I’d never be awestruck in the same way again. (And if that were true, I’d have had good reason to worry; according to science, the awe we experience while traveling can soothe anxiety and strengthen communities.)

wonder number two: the sun setting over the Nile in Aswan

That visit to Disneyland was what sprang to mind when I read this compelling piece on travel and the fleeting feeling of wonder. Author

Mark Hodson

observes that, while we’d love to feel wonder and awe all the time, those feelings are special because they are rare and unpredictable; they come to us at the most unexpected of moments, and if we try to force them, we are bound to be disappointed. I couldn’t wrest the same thrill out of Disneyland in my teens because after years of visiting, it had become routine. Heartbreaking, but true.

So what can we conclude from this? Mark rightly points out that all we can do to maximize our chances of experiencing wonder is to put ourselves in situations where those astonishing moments are most likely to occur. I may not be as enthralled by Disneyland as I once was, but I am bewitched by phenomena involving water—like the glassy surface of Yosemite’s Mirror Lake, sunsets over the Nile, and how a bright turquoise ocean contrasts with pristine white sand in the Maldives—so I spend time near rivers, lakes, and seas as often as I can.

I would add one other takeaway to Mark’s: don’t travel or try new things simply to chase an elusive high. Do it because it will expand your worldview, or because you’ll learn something interesting, or because the adventure will somehow make you more whole. Hope for those little moments of magic, and if they come, relish them. Take a deep breath. Drag them out for as long as you can.

God willing, I’ll return to Disneyland with my own children one day, and perhaps I’ll recapture that sense of enchantment as I watch my babies experience it for the very first time.

I think that would be the most wondrous feeling of all.

wonder three: the color of the Indian Ocean, as seen from the Maldives

For those of you following closely, I know you expected a new Salon this week. I’ve had to delay it due to an unforeseen circumstance, so the next Salon will be coming in February. Thank you for your patience!