Growing up, I inherited a number of Disney records played on an old player, & I’d become so excited when dropping the needle to hear the music scratched out on the basic speaker, static & all. In that collection were a number of classic tunes from both early movies & from the Disneyland itself. Songs like “It’s a Small World” & “The Tiki, Tiki, Tiki Room” sounded exotic & unusual, & I’d imagine the experiences.

So, you can imagine that visiting Magic Kingdom meant many nostalgic feelings for rides like “It’s a Small World” & “Dumbo the Flying Elephant,” & I wasn’t disappointed.

The above-mentioned recorded theme park songs act like earworms, super-catchy & rich in composition, like most children’s songs can be. The little one sat with wide eyes, trying to soak in all of the spectacles of light, color, movement, & sensory stimulation. Even though I wasn’t feeling high in energy, seeing everything through the eyes of a toddler helped me to remember a Sharon less stressed, less serious, less forced. Those feelings of cognitive dissonance, like how am I so different now?… They make me pause.

It can lead to a surreal sense of meta cognition, where time blends together in the consciousness, blurred & nebulous lacking boundaries or distinctions.

The Dumbo soundtrack stirs up a lot of those feelings, since I had a children’s book of the Disney illustrations. The crows were unkind. Similar to “Pinocchio” where the island of donkeys (Pleasure Island) really scared me, there’s something about carnival spaces that seems a little sinister to me. I don’t think I’d want my son to see those frightening images in film as young as I did. There must have been a grimmer feel to the post-World-War world during the Cold War.

Recently, I’ve noticed a lot of pop culture around carnival or circus settings in films like “Wonder Wheel,” “Adventureland,” “Like Water for Elephants,” “Big,”  & they all involving longing & loss, disillusionment & growing up. Quite a paradox. There’s a bittersweet pang felt there.

And yet, when I see my son smile, that dark cloud dissipates, & all I see is excitement, glee, & joy… And that makes all the difference.