On a Saturday, some time ago, the Man and I drove to the infamous Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California. You know you’re at Disney when you’re greeted by giant statues of un-ironically cheery dwarves.

As we passed the security guard, we immediately felt a little cheerier ourselves!

We’d snagged screening tickets to view the recently released Mary Poppins Returns, with the promise that Emily Blunt would come by and answer a few questions. This sort of alluring perk is what makes being married to a stuntman totally worth it. Emily Blunt and a free movie, I felt, definitely compensated for the ups and downs of the flakiest industry on earth, and for the arsenal of rubber weapons (I repeat, RUBBER) scattered around the house right now.

Emily was great, though overshadowed in my heart by the sheer awesomeness of the movie itself. Also, the Director Rob Marshall was there and I super fangirled on him. Chicago is my favorite Broadway-musical-turned-movie of all times. Nothing can beat Queen Latifah’s breasts stealing the show to Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Queen Latifah herself.

Mary Poppins Returns is a story about wonder lost and wonder found again, a story about weary adults’ shoulders failing under the crushing weight of adult-y responsibilities. It’s a story about most of us.

Wonder—the wide-eyed kind of amazement you’ll see on six month-old babies’ faces as they realize they can comfortably fit every single one of their fingers into their nose; or on five-year olds’ faces as they realize they can fit their 6-month old baby brother into the toilet bowl. I vaguely remember. Do you?

Have you ever noticed that our wide eyes get less so with age? That the twinkle becomes dimmer and the eyelids heavier on eyes that may have seen too much not to grow a bit jaded? We no longer see magic but magic is there, everywhere. Life is made of daily miracles that may just be too small for eyes half-shut to see.

Awareness is half the battle, and action, imho, is the other half.

Dare follow the crazy (me) or opt out, but this is what I’ll be doing this year:

+ Buying myself toys

Not the adult kind, the kiddie kind (well… maybe also the adult kind). Toys that were made in industrial China and imported at the lowest cost possible for our absolute pleasure.

I don’t have kids so there is no blaming this on them. It’ll be all me folks, aaaall meeee.

And I know I’m not the only one out there either. Remember the lady who treated herself to a talking Chewbacca mask and laughed herself to tears in her car? I wanna be her, she’s my 2019 spirit animal.

To the raised eyebrows and the too-serious-for-their-own-goods out there: yeah, let’s not pretend we didn’t all secretly hope to find a Hatchimal under the Christmas tree this year and were disappointed when we instead ripped the shiny wrapper to the latest, biggest, baddest state-of-the-art crockpot.

If indeed toys have the power to make me feel a girl of 8 again and alter the course of life and time, then maybe toys can alter present and future with their endearing juju… Someone please send Trump his weight in Playmobil right this instant!

+ Skipping

Not a month ago, the Man and I skipped our way into Universal studios, because walking cool, calm and collected into the land of twelve-dollar pizza slices and where the Simpsons, the Mummy and Harry Potter manage to cohabit JUST CAN’T be the way.

So we crossed arms and skipped down Main Street, and the breeze was blowing through our hair, and we hummed to the music and giggled, and whole families - kids included - watched us skippydoo as though we were loony, but we didn't care because nobody pouts at the Studios and we’ll puke a little in our (respective) mouths on the Mummy ride soon enough and then eat some more, and all is good in this world so long as we’re skipping.

+ Swinging

Not THAT kind of swinging you dirty girl/boy ;)

The kiddie kind, I said!

I dragged my friend Andrea to the playground two weeks ago and zoomed right over to the swings. She followed me inquisitively. I said to her: “I’m swinging, and you’re swinging with me”

We squeezed our behinds into the swings aside a couple of baffled five year olds. The rusty frames immediately started to wail, giving off a long, deep cry that made chills go down our spines and, I’m sure, the humpback whales to rally at the nearest coast.

We swung and swung and swung some more, but drew the lines at jumping from the swing in mid air to land a few feet further into the sandbox. Because 40 and no one needs to break an ankle.

+ Treating myself to the full movie theater experience

I can barely contain myself waiting for the next geeky release of the Incredible Indiana and the Avengers’ Stone. The Man and I will go and order the supersized bucket of popcorn we won’t manage to finish. Because even though it is indecently overpriced and a heart attack in a bucket, the price tag will be mostly forgotten by the time we take our first sip of frozen, tangy blue raspberry icee and the Meg has chomped on the leg of a character we didn’t care for. Well done, the Meg, well, done.

— Cécile Charlot

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