I believe in many impossible things. And it all stems back to two of the most defining films of my childhood. I remember coming home when I was maybe 5 turning 6 years old and I had just seen Bedknobs and Broomsticks, with Angela Lansbury, and I was enchanted. I have this vague memory of sitting in the theatre, mesmerized.

The other movie is Mary Poppins. I guess I’ve always been attracted to magical characters; to those for whom the impossible is always possible. It’s either spoonfull(s) of honey or enchanted bedknobs, and hocus-pocus, ain’t life grand.

Does that sound cynical? Maybe a little. They both represent such innocence and a pure, unadulterated belief in magical things, that to this day I have held onto them. Like scraps of my old stuffed dog that Mom kept in her underwear drawer, I hold these films with an esteem in order to remind me of that pure sense of wonder. And why not?

IF it were not for them, what would I sing when I’m flying a kite?

The adult mind can be so swift to throw away these trinkets, and find all the faults within the very structures of these old Broadway plays made into a film. All the moral commentaries on a British class structure that saw “magic” and all those old fey forces of nature as of the servant class alone. God forbid such nonsense should infest the upper classes with notions of grand adventures and that sense of freedom that those primary characters each enjoy. As the upper classes must maintain their stiff upper lips, and keep the machine chug-chugging away.

Ah, chimney-sweeps & nanny’s can always save the day. Yet I recognize those aspects at a far different level, of course, then I hold those childhood notions of magic and mayhem. I still recognize underlying those thoughts that feeling of anything being possible, if you just believe. If you just go fly a kite once in a while, and just generally not be so blawdy serious all the time, perhaps that could help to solve some of our problems. A good ol’chill out, and a shot every once in a while of that chaotic aspect of our primal selves, could maybe even bring about world peace.

Perhaps I should start a campaign? Although, maybe I’m too much the dreamer.

I wonder though what purpose all that serves, in the long run? Does maintaining a sense of wonder benefit me? Seems sometimes that it only makes one more sensitive to the seedier aspects of society. Compassion can do that, makes us vulnerable. Yet I can not live closed off from the divine spirit that infests every living thing. Call it energy, call it the pulse of life, but it is a force within both nature that we can see and touch, and that internal nature that resides in those indefinable aspects of ourselves.

And whether I am standing in a field flying a kite, or on a walk in a forest, I can not help but see that maybe still anything is possible if you just believe. And I am thankful I was allowed to hold onto those bits and pieces of that purity and belief in the impossible. I am after all a product of that old British stock, and hence our family has retained some of the essence of the pagan British, who became the farming classes that were sometimes forced into the urban centres. Whilst the Aristocracy bargained and sold their souls to the devil, and danced on their marble floors, the rest of us went upon our merry ways and made sure we kept our feet on the earth.

And isn’t it a beautiful dichotomy that in order to fly you first have to be grounded.  For when you look up, the pull of the earth can knock you off your feet if you’re not careful.