A rainy day in Never Never Land

“Mummy, look at the Indian.” As I sat on the bus, compulsively checking the street signs at every intersection to be sure I didn’t miss my stop, I overheard this darling little boy speak to his mother. He was pointing to a book on his lap, his mother gazing out the window. What really sparked my interest, though, was the fluffy brown teddy bear tucked securely under his left arm. Immediately I saw this little English boy as Michael, the youngest of the Darling children from J.M. Barrie’s “Peter Pan and Wendy.” Was this boy looked after by a Saint Bernard named Nana? Did his older sister leave her window open every night, perchance so a young boy might listen to her stories? And suddenly the bus is not a bus, and the road names are not “St. James” or “Gardiner.” A thick fog creeps in from all corners, filled with effervescent capsules of memories, floating around me waiting to reveal their reminiscences. Julie London’s voice announces over the PA system: “Gonna take a sentimental journey.” What street was I looking for? A gleaming bubble encapsulates my head.

Youth is wasted on the young. In every octogenarian lives an eight year old boy or girl, pleading with the world to release them from their decrepit body, still waiting for that mystical boy to shake fairy dust on them and fly away, powered only by pure happy thoughts. Where is Tinker Bell, that mischievous and jealous fairy, with her bodacious hips and ballerina bun? What makes the story of Peter Pan so sad and so beloved worldwide? It’s everyone’s story, in a sense. It’s a story of coming to terms with lost innocence, the story of that one cruel realization that our bodies force our minds to grow up. The soft lines of childhood are perverted as fat accumulates, jutting out in places it never did before, and the soft silken hair of bonnie heads coarsens and spreads like an infectious disease. It’s curious to think that most people spend their entire childhood wishing to be older, only to spend the rest of their adulthood wishing to be younger. But to live as a child forever? Thus far, none save a solitary boy have achieved the great feat.

I examine the teddy bear a second time. Another bubble circles my head with a whirling haze. The mist clears and I am staring at a familiar face, brown and fuzzy, with a black threaded nose and two glass-bead eyes. My sheets are covered with Belle and the Beast: using my sophisticated system of sheet-dating it’s 1992 and I am 3 years old. As I trace the bear’s scarlet velvet heart, I can feel my pervasive nervousness. My mom is at the hospital, waiting for the baby to come out of her tummy. My sister, the eternal babysitter by proxy, suggests we watch a movie. I drag Teddy down the oatmeal carpeted stairs to the family room as my sister feeds Walt Disney’s Peter Pan into the mouth of the black machine. For weeks after, the sound of soft little feet padding to the window would be followed by the muffled grinding of wood against wood. A cold breeze would find its way through the half-open window, and a little girl, with a teddy bear secured tightly under her arm, would dream of the boy who would come and take her on marvelous adventures.  

This bubble is soon replaced by another. My sheets are blue with crisscrossing lines, seemingly mapping the infinite crossroads and decisions to come. It’s 2003, and I am 13 years old. I am in immense physical and emotional pain. Through a hideous operation I’ve been left mutilated. My face is puffy and my cheeks and gums are bleeding. Braces are an excellent metaphor for growing up. Imposed by the restrictions and beliefs of adults, they are cemented on without consent, to force your teeth to conform, obey, and become what society expects. They are constantly checked, tightened, and reordered. They are the source of much physical and emotional turmoil. Metal, as unmalleable as time, glints as it catches the light, reflecting an awkward and disproportionate smile as the photographer snaps a school photo. This is when I learned to not smile with my teeth. This is when I began to grow up. This is the year I stopped my midnight visits to the window.

And yet, Peter Pan lives on. Our subconscious remains his Neverland. He is always present, always at the window we secretly keep open in our hearts, waiting for childhood to find us again. He leaves us little reminders. I see his smile in the little boy with his teddy bear on the bus, dreaming of Indians. Like the silver thimble Wendy gifted to Peter Pan, I too keep a symbol of my childhood near to me. If you arrive at the window of 37 Hyde Park Gate, Room 2G and peek in, on the top bunk in the corner, the bedraggled but friendly face of an old teddy bear will peek back at you from under the covers.