I Wonder

My entire family was perched on edges of furniture all around the family room. The tension was palpable, as I’m sure it was for many, many other Illinois residents on that particular night in 1993. With 3.9 seconds left on the clock, we all watched breathlessly as John Paxson’s feet left the boards and the ball arched gracefully away from his fingers.

Regardless of day to day belief system, everyone in Chicago believed in magic for the seconds in which that ball was suspended in midair.

It was game six in the NBA finals, and the Bulls were down by two against the Suns in the remaining seconds of the game. As Paxson’s three-point shot swooshed effortlessly through the net, my family room exploded, as did much of the Chicagoland area. Four years later, my family once again enacted a similar scene of joyful hysteria as the Bulls won their second three-peat. On that night in 1997, my sister’s new puppy had been snoozing peacefully in the kitchen when the cheering had detonated, and he awoke in sheer terror, bolted for the laundry room, and could not be coaxed out for a good long while afterwards.

I remember my childhood as a golden age of cultural Threes, specifically the double three-peats of the Bulls and the holy Disney trifecta of The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin. The funny thing is that I remember those basketball games as fondly as I do the Disney movies: my wonder at the fireflies encircling Ariel and Eric’s rowboat is only rivaled by my wonder at Paxson’s perfect three-point shot. They all shared a common, breathless hold over me; the rapture of experiencing something unexpectedly magnificent or beautiful.

Who says there isn’t grace in small moments?

Wonder, by nature and necessity, is brief, but it packs a powerful punch. I have vivid memories of wonder from my childhood, and they are odd, idiosyncratic instances, like the moment I realized I had gotten an American Girl doll for my birthday or the first time I watched Han Solo swoop in from space to save the day in the first Star Wars movie. These moments got rarer as I got older; a phenomenon which is unfortunate, trite, tried, and true.

The thing about wonder is that it is unadulterated: it is the complete and immersive sensation of surprise, joy, and amazement. As I thought about it, I wanted to make meaning out of the fact that “unadulterated” was such a significant word in how I defined the concept of wonder. To adulterate is to corrupt, debase, or make impure by the addition of a foreign or inferior substance or element. When I thought about what that meant in terms of wonder, my brain stuck on the idea that wonder could be corrupted by the addition of cynicism. In a way, wonder could be adulterated by… well, becoming an adult.

The etymology nerd within raised her gladius with a battle cry: To the dictionary!

Unfortunately for my convenient theories about adulterating and adulthood, it turns out that “adulterate” comes from the Latin word adulterare (to adulterate), which is ultimately derived from ad altero (to or towards another), essentially meaning false or unchaste. The English “adult” derives from adultus, the perfect past participle of adolescere, to grow up or mature.

While an interesting Monday morning Latin lesson, none of this particularly advanced my theory about the adulterating nature of adulthood. Curses, foiled again!

I had been thinking about all of this because recently, I had the odd experience of consciously choosing wonder over cynicism—I basically smacked my cynicism on the nose and commanded it to sit and stay. This was not a climactic moment in my life by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, it was a lazy Sunday night, curled up on my couch watching the movie Tangled.

I had seen the movie once before, after reading the glowing review of a fellow blogger. Pixar lately has done a pretty good job of resurrecting the art of good story-telling through animation, and though Tangled is not a Pixar production, I had been willing to give it a shot. In my opinion, it was worth watching, since the chameleon sidekick alone made me laugh out loud.

There is one scene, the sort of romantic click moment in the movie, when thousands of paper lanterns are released into the night sky and reflected in the sea below. The scene, visually and thematically, has a lot in common with the rowboat scene from The Little Mermaid: there’s something about a world of music, water, and floating lights that just keys up enchantment and goosebumps.

Presumably, the presence of Prince Charming doesn’t hurt either, but that particular detail is where I nearly derailed myself.

Yeah, I began to think, because the good-looking, charming guys always turn out to have hearts of pure gold…

It was then that I pulled myself up short. As I had started to scowl, all of my goosebumps had evaporated, and the loveliness of the image withered as my cynicism overwhelmed it.

What was the matter with me? Was I really being grumpy over the fact that a Disney romantic lead turned out to be a winner? Seriously? I took time to pause and reevaluate.

Yes, it’s been an interesting couple of years, in which some of my expectations and assumptions have changed. Cynicism, which I’ve always possessed but which in the last few years seems to have run rampant, is in no uncertain terms a defense mechanism: it is the mental catch you develop to nip unrealistic dreams in the bud, before they can take root and potentially lead to disappointment. But when that cynicism seems to wriggle in to most areas of your life—including Sunday night Disney movies—isn’t that an indication it may have gone a little too far?

We temper humor with irony; we smother wonder with skepticism. We do so because to do otherwise would not only seem childish and naive, but would also make us vulnerable. I’m not sure when my concept of adulthood became so truculent and uncompromising, but the logic is flawed that says we can save ourselves from disappointment by ruling out the possibility of wonder.

I am in no way saying that I will henceforth skip about my life with a coterie of blue birds. However, I will make an effort not to dampen every hint of wonder with a strong dose of cynicism. After all, I very much doubt that positive reinforcement and cookies will fall from the sky to reward me for being a mature, immovable adult. I created these ridiculous expectations; I’m the only one who can dial them back.

I think that, not surprisingly, Jim Henson was the one who ultimately got it right. The Muppets are hilariously funny, with no small dose of irony and pratfalling. That humor, though, does not dilute, and in a strange way enhances, those small moments of wonder and grace, like Gonzo singing to the sky: “I’ve never been there, but I know the way—I’m going to go back there someday.”

Those are the moments when even my cynicism is humbled and quiets down to listen. To others it may sound unforgivably cheesy, but I like to think that it’s important to keep those instances of wonder sacred: to keep them undiluted, to enjoy the vulnerability and awe of experiencing something amazing, and to occasionally let yourself be fully wide-eyed and goose-bumped.

And so I will watch (next season, I hope) with joyfully bated breath as the magnificent spiral of a Peyton Manning throw finds the outstretched hands of Joseph Addai. I will be amazed as my very own best friend grows a whole new person inside of her. I will reserve the right to be, without rationalization, moved by the loveliness of floating lights in an animated movie.

And I will think to myself, What a wonderful world.