Literally everyone standing in line is on their phone. It said the wait time was 85 minutes but when we got halfway through they said it would be longer, that’s all they said. And when Charlotte checked the wait time on her phone it said 135 minutes. All this for a ride, though they say it’s the best.

When we got to the car rental they were almost closed and yet people kept pouring in off the courtesy vans and queuing in the lobby with their shit everywhere. Some tired-looking Arab with a white beard and skull cap got behind me and rolled his eyes at Charlotte who was voguing at her phone, pursing her lips. “The next generation,” he said. And then, “I have eight. Eight,” he repeated. “I pay for many phones.”

All they had left were pickup trucks so I said fine. When they pulled up with the truck the Arab shrugged and said, You get a truck? And I just hoisted the bags in the back and got in but Dawn said it smells like weed and marched into the dispatch and barked it smells like weed so they got another one. And the Arab said, No truck? And I said you get the one that smells like weed.

No masks, not once, all day at the park. It is like it never happened. Snot-nosed kids, Disney adults our kids call DAs, wearing dumb shit like mouse ears and dragon tails and Star Wars shirts from the 1980s. Bubbles everywhere, strollers. A display of men in Army green paint like plastic toy soldiers from the Pixar film Toy Story. Photo opps beside the characters from the film: R2-D2, Lightning McQueen (the red car from the film Cars, voice by Owen Wilson). This is America, sans masks. There is no pandemic, there is no end to anything, not even the world. Especially that. We will go for frozen yogurt and dump gummy worms on it and load it on the scale. There is no end, only the now, and it is perfect but never enough.

We have been at the park since 0700 we realize at 15:30. We have a reservation for Space Mountain at 21:55 and it makes me tired just thinking about that. It is not just the alcohol that fucked me last time, it is the vibe of this park, the stimulation. The sonic inputs are the worst. I’m moved to hate, to hurt someone. All these dramatic, false moments amplified on screen. All these falsehoods everywhere you look, these fake cartoon animals and their squeaky voices. The problem with America is right here and it’s really expensive but still everyone is trying to get in.

But I look down at my kids and they are transformed. To the kids they always were and always could be, to my fantasy of being reborn. I am here for the love of my kids. I am taken back to being a kid myself, to all the amusement parks my parents brought me to. I am tripping out on the layering of memories, the flashing of lights and the distant screams of children falling through skies. I am falling back myself, falling out. Dying, reborn, transcended. I am reliving the best times of my life through the eyes of my kids when life tasted so sweet, the fruit was still good. I am hobbling my way through my 50s after 14 fucking hours at this park and I am just warming up. The wait times are dropping and we are shooting through lines: in and out of plastic seats, onto the next one, sucking them down. I just ate two beignets I ordered on my phone and I could eat a third.

At the end of it we go to the museum to watch a short film on Frederick Douglass. Can you imagine? After all this we are sitting in a museum at the park commemorating Abraham Lincoln and his friend F. Douglass. People next to me are dozing off. Who does this?

And then we are following signs for the tram back to the parking lots. Hurrying to make the next one. Charlotte leaning her head on my shoulder, the cool night air. Falling asleep in the back of the truck saying mom and dad, thank you for Disneyland. A look of sheer contentment, or the look of a drug addict.

We are always hurrying it seems, falling through space. Falling in and out of our bodies right before we awake. Today we will look back with wonder at all we did. And check in for our flight tomorrow, it’s time to pre-order food. It is always this way, the very best. And it is never enough, to be the best.

Categories: travel, writing

Tags: creative nonfiction, existentialism, parenting