Finding Magic In Every Moment

We'd been on the same rides dozens of times over the years. This one included: The Haunted Mansion at Disneyland, which is converted to the movie theme The Nightmare Before Christmas during the holidays from Thanksgiving through the first week in January. That's when we were there this time after the New Year. 

During the ride, you're taken up above a long dining area with ghosts and goblins dancing and flying around. As I took it all in, I looked at the place settings on the dining room table and thought, That's odd, why does that place setting look so different than the others?

I stared at it for the seconds we had in that part of the ride. What was different?

Then it hit me: That's a hidden Mickey. The place setting configure as the iconic Mickey Mouse face and ears.

Supposedly over 1,000 hidden Mickeys have been recorded throughout the Disney theme parks, properties, media, etc. We've been coming to Disneyland with our daughters nearly every year since 2014. The exceptions were 2019 when we took them to Disney World for the first time, and then of course 2020 during the first year of the pandemic when Disney (and everything was closed). Years before the girls we spent part of our honeymoon in Disneyland. We're grateful for every visit we've had at the Magic Kingdom. Yes, we love going, even with the crush of rude people, long lines, occasional broken-down rides, and overpriced food and drinks.

But we've never seen a hidden Mickey until now, and we actually found three. 

We've heard about the hidden Mickeys over the years, but never found any until now. We never really looked for any either. We just enjoyed our visits as much as possible until we were done. However, every visit prior to this time wasn't without its adult and child angst, frustration, stress, and grumpy bouts with each other. Normal human stuff that happens no matter how well you think you plan and mitigate with your kids. 

This time was different in Disney, though. Yes, our girls are older now, teens, and while you'd think that would've added to the angst, frustration, stress, and the grumps, it really didn't. In fact, it was the most mellow and enjoyable few days in the Magic Kingdom ever. The girls were ready to spend more time on their own for the first time in Disneyland including going back and forth to the hotel on their own when they wanted to take a break. 

Even with the torrential storms happening throughout California and our daily worries about our community, neighborhood, our home, and our dog Jenny back in Santa Cruz (and checking in on all of it each day), we enjoyed our mostly sunny Southern California Disney in between the storms. This trip had been planned over 10 months ago and no one could've predicted getting 700% of average annual rainfall in just a few weeks. I also don't think I'd ever seen a headline before that said, "90% of California Under Severe Weather Watch."

With all that -- going to Disney, finding hidden Mickeys, and traversing the storms -- my wife Amy and I always plan for safety everywhere we go (at least for what we have control over). We've also been working hard at letting go of "things" that we have no control over, and things that no longer serve us, whatever those are, and being open to anything and everything all at once. Our daily meditations have helped us understand that the more you let go, the more new possibilities and ideas can occur; you see connections and opportunities you never saw before. Emotional, psychological, and spiritual connections and opportunities. More than that, the ability to accept whatever happens and whatever we manifest while enjoying the moments we have with one another. 

Ah, there he goes waxing philosophical again. What the heck does any of that have to do with going to Disney, hidden Mickeys, and storms? Our teens might think we're nuts sometimes, but hidden Mickeys became the metaphor for letting go and finding magic in every moment, and after all these years, we found them. 

The Ultimate Quits

"Nothing is perfekt

Certainly not me

Success to failure

Is just a matter of degrees..."

—Geddy Lee, Working at Perfekt

Two weeks in, I was miserable. Actually, misery had already been trailing me like a nasty funk, but it was the physics did me in. Literally the physics class. I had started community college with a scholarship, down a path to engineering, something I thought I wanted, but really didn't. In fact, I didn't know what I wanted at all way back then after high school. The end of high school for me was marked with horrible anxiety that stemmed from childhood trauma and the pressure to succeed from others, and from myself. 

Bottom line — I was a mess. So, two weeks after community college started, I quit. For a week after that, I pretended to go to classes, too afraid to tell my parents. They figured it out, were disappointed, but listened to me struggle to tell them why. A year later I'd start college at San Jose State University, where I eventually and proudly finished, but even that was a rocky road at first.

People quit things for many reasons. They quit school they never wanted, bad habits, unhealthy relationships, and thankless jobs. In fact, during the past year, millions of people have quit their jobs in search of something more for themselves, for their families, or both. If anything, the COVID-19 pandemic became a super-accelerator of change for many. Not just about jobs, but relationships and many other life choices. There's been so much loss as well of all the things we used to take for granted. We can't forget that we're nearing 1 million deaths related to COVID-19. 

Our children have also experienced traumatic changes during the past two years — losing loved ones of course, but also how they learn, where they learn, where they can go, who they can be with and see, what extracurricular activities they can or can't participate in. It''s no surprise that mental health challenges have increased dramatically with children and teens today. 

Pandemic aside, I was raised that when you start something, you finish it, no matter how unhappy you are or you become. It's worse when you're forced to do something you don't want to do because the adults in charge want you to do it. That it's the unhappiness of the challenge that builds character, resilience, and grit.

I used to believe that, but I don't today, although I've struggled with it to this day. There is context for for everything, and while persevering and working through challenging situations can help us become more resilient, we still have and should have the capacity to choose. To change our minds. To quit if necessary, especially when it's no longer fun and fulfilling. 

My wife Amy and I have always wanted our children to try new things, to want to learn new things. Beyond core curriculum in school, we're talking about sports, music, art, and other related activities. Years ago I wanted our daughters to sign up for the Jedi training at Disneyland, being the big Star Wars fan I am. There were nervous and stressed about trying it, almost backed out, but did it and loved it. 

Maybe they didn't want to disappoint me, but they did it. And true, that was me living my life through them, an adulting habit that can be hard to break. However, when they do discover activities they find fulfilling and fun, then we encourage them to pursue them further (even if we encouraged it in the first place). Fun and fulfilling is foundational for positive growth, grit, confidence, and overcoming fear. If they aren't feeling it, and misery follows and they want to quit, then they should, even if they're good at it. Soccer they both felt and still feel. Playing in the school band, not so much. They still tried, though. 

However, that's the hard part for me, fighting my "when you start something, you finish it" upbringing, no matter how miserable you are. That you can only be proud when you stick it out, because quitters are losers. But that's such crap. The latest meditation that Amy and I have been practicing is all about letting go. Letting go of things that are no longer fulfilling or fun, nurturing or loving, that are destructive emotionally and physically, and the list goes on. 

So, when we went to Ms. Tina's celebration of life, one of the beloved teachers from our girls' grade school who passed away suddenly last December, I looked out over the sea where the setting sun was headed as it let go of yet another day of possibilities. And it hit me — life is here, and then it's gone. Letting go of the not fun or fulfilling is healthy, the ultimate quits, ones we should be proud of for ourselves and our children. 

Let It Rest

"I'm alright
Nobody worry 'bout me
Why you got to gimme a fight?
Can't you just let it be?"

–Kenny Loggins, I'm Alright

It stopped working for no reason. We'd been driving over three hours to my sister's house and listening to Songs of America: Patriotism, protest, and the music that made a nation, an inspiring new book collaboration from Jon Meacham and Tim McGraw, when the Apple CarPlay software connection stopped working. I swapped out my phone for my wife's, but neither one worked. So odd because it had never happened before. I realized that software can hiccup and yet was still immediately obsessed with why the heck it stopped working.

I unplugged and plugged in our phones multiple times, but nothing.

"Let it rest," my wife Amy said.

"Let it rest?" I said.

"Yes, let it rest."

"That's not a thing."

"Sure it is. Things get tired and need to rest."

"Nope, not a thing."

So I fiddled with it for a few more minutes and then gave up. We visited with my sister and then went to my high school reunion, and on the next day we went out to lunch. The CarPlay connection worked again as if it had never stopped.

"See, I told you," Amy said.

"Damn, what the heck?" I said. "It's still not a thing."

"Yes, it is."

We laughed. After fun weekend of reunion and family time with my sister, niece and great niece, we returned home to find that the gophers had returned to our backyard. In the 13 years we've lived in our house, I can recall only one or two times when we've had gophers in our backyard.

A few months ago I wouldn't have stressed on it as much since we'd let our backyard go. The reason being that our pet rabbit Dragonlily, only a little over a year old, had free reign in our backyard and ate everything in sight. But at the end of April we upgraded our yard with new sod, flagstone and a rabbit run (so our bunny wouldn't eat everything in sight).

We did it all ourselves and we were super proud of it, just like we did when we first moved in all those years ago. And then the gophers came back. With a vengeance. Freshly pushed up dirt piles along the edge of our new flagstone and along the new grass. Plus, we had notice some strange yellow spots on the lawn over the past month and now wondered if it was them -- the friggin' gophers -- digging under the new sod. I tried to flood them out, but that didn't work.

"The gopher can be a friend to bun-bun," Amy said, referring to our rabbit Dragonlily, after I came in cursing about the latest mounds of freshly dug-up dirt.

"No gopher friends," I said.

"C'mon, Sweetie. It'll be fine. A little gopher or two aren't hurting anyone."

"But it's not fine and it's hurting me; you know how much work went into the yard. Should I just let this rest, Sweetie? Maybe it'll just fix itself?"

I tried to say it with a frustrated wink and smile, and she gave me a pass thankfully. She knows how I get and is always much better at letting go than me. Even our rabbit was trying to tell me to chill out, eating one of our flowers when he had a few minutes out of his run, two feet from a fresh gopher hole.

But to no avail; I headed for the local ACE hardware store and asked one of the guys that worked there what humane gopher/mole traps they had. "None that work," he told me. Then I asked for the gopher/mole gas, which looked like little sticks of dynamite with a short fuse. Really.

I wanted this gopher or gophers gone before we left on our family vacation. I lit one little stick of dynamite gas and push it into a hole and covered it with dirt. It was super stinky, too. I did two of these in two different gopher holes, and of course while doing this, I couldn't help remember the scenes in the classic comedy Caddyshack, with Bill Murray trying to blow up the gopher. And the gopher always got away, even after the golf course was completely destroyed.

On the morning we left for our family vacation, I went out to the still dark backyard and noticed a freshly dug out mound of gopher dirt in between two pieces of lovely new flagstone.

I audibly sighed and shook my head.

Nothing to do but let it rest. They can have it all (for now).

I'm alright. I can just let it be.