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"But I`m warning you - once you`ve grown up, you can never come back."
- Peter Pan, 1953
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One day, when Hilary was four years old, she was playing in her grandparents` garden and plucked a rose for her mother. She must have looked rather delightful, for her mother put her hand to her heart and cried: "Oh, why can`t you remain like this forever!" Henceforth, Hilary knew that she must grow up and that things would inevitably change one day.
This inference was the beginning of the end.
Or so it seemed.
About twenty years later, she found herself on the scintillating, glistening shores of the Colombian coast overlooking the miraculous azure hues of the Caribbean Sea. "What a sight for sore eyes," she thought to herself as she observed the foamy, white crests adorning the top of each wave as they rolled towards her sandy feet.
She took a deep breath.
She`d indeed grown up since the day she`d plucked that rose, and she was pretty certain, she didn`t like it. "Adults," she scoffed. "Adults are ridiculous. They`re senseless, unreliable and confusing. They`ve lost all spark that makes life worth living and all capacity to be humble and to enjoy the simple things in addition to it!"
She threw a shell she`d found buried in the sand back into the sea.
How astoundingly quiet it was. It almost made her feel uncomfortable. It was strangely overwhelming, that sensation of utter silence and pure peace. Where she`d come from, people never ceased talking and they`d generally forgotten what it meant to live in serenity and harmony. They`d failed to remember what it meant to embrace compassion and to accept kindness and love as the pillars of a peaceful co-existence.
She shook her head.
Thinking of home always stung a little. She couldn't quite help but mourn the loss of loved ones to the concept of adulthood. "It`s so awfully dark," she mumbled, noticing shivers jolting down her spine. "It`s as though the moment people realise they`ve grown up, all colour is extracted from the entirety of their existence. It`s like someone switches the light off. There`s no peace anymore and no desire to reclaim it, either. That`s why growing up sucks. People stop noticing the beauty surrounding them day by day. They stop believing in the magic and marvels of life, just like that. They turn cold, joyless and frustrated." She paused. "How very sad."
She began to walk along the beach. The sun, nearing its zenith above the horizon, burned her neck. Careless, she reflected on the course of her life and wondered if she`d ever truly been happy and if she`d ever truly found peace.
She felt relief when she noticed her lips curling into a faint smile.
Yes. There`d been times of bliss, balance and harmony, when she`d still believed in miracles the way only carefree, innocent children do; when trees had still been enchanted, the woods had still housed dwarfs and fairies, rivers had still harboured treasures and when she`d still waited for the moon and the stars to descend only to lull her to sleep night after night. There had been no limits to her imagination and the thought of her childhood and adolescence warmed her heart and made her chuckle. How beautifully exciting and mysterious they`d been, those evenings spent at the lakeside where her friends and she used to wait impatiently for the sun to set, so they could secretly skinny-dip in the ice cold water. How heavenly those Sundays had felt during which she`d hibernate in tents made of pillows, blankets and sheets that carried her parents` scent, to immerse herself in all sorts of fantastical worlds conjured by the books she read. And how thrilling those mornings had been when the way to school had taken twice as long as jaunting across a field of daisies and poppies had taken utmost priority.
Ah. Yes.
Her heart skipped a beat at the memory of those spring afternoons spent with her closest ones in the countryside, where a carpet of frost made sitting on the wet ground - whilst gathered around candles and bonfires - a cosy, unforgettable pleasure. She remembered the music complementing their late nights and the taste of cheap alcohol persuading their hopelessly young, drunken hearts to fall in love, only to be woken up by an unruly breeze sweeping over their intoxicated, intertwined bodies the following morning in order to invite all of them to witness the spectacle of falling cherry blossom leaves covering their town in a vast blanket of rose madden petal snow.
Her heart skipped a beat at the memory of those spring afternoons spent with her closest ones in the countryside, where a carpet of frost made sitting on the wet ground - whilst gathered around candles and bonfires - a cosy, unforgettable pleasure. She remembered the music complementing their late nights and the taste of cheap alcohol persuading their hopelessly young, drunken hearts to fall in love, only to be woken up by an unruly breeze sweeping over their intoxicated, intertwined bodies the following morning in order to invite all of them to witness the spectacle of falling cherry blossom leaves covering their town in a vast blanket of rose madden petal snow.
"No doubt," she thought.
No doubt had she felt at peace at some point in her past. And no doubt had that peace been disturbed the moment they`d all inevitably transitioned from youth to that rather off-putting condition called "adulthood". Growing up had crept upon her - and everyone else she knew at that time - like a contagious, merciless, lethal disease without a single sign of warning. The period of incubation was accompanied by sheer terror and utter desperation; within the space of a few weeks she`d attended more funerals than she`d ever feared possible. The friends she`d once sworn to conquer the world with were no more. One by one willingly exchanged spontaneity for rigidity, humour for sternness, compassion for intolerance, modesty for arrogance, unconditional love for cynicism and creativity for dullness, until there were no infantile spirits left to bury any longer. It felt as if the entirety of her existence was shifted into a monochrome matrix of monotony from that moment onwards. There was hardly any vibrancy to the colour of her days anymore. The levity that had saturated the years of her harmonious, young existence had yielded to what advocates of said poisonous disease proudly called the "era of respectability, success, reputability and responsibility."
She snorted and kicked into the blazing sand.
What absolute nonsense.
In her years as a grown up, she`d hardly ever met an adult who had truly honoured - let alone lived by - those principles. She`d witnessed a greater number of adults bending those conventions to their liking in order to behave like ill-mannered children than otherwise. It was all nothing but a deceptive carnival. And seeing that the absurdity of the matter exceeded the realm of her comprehension, she also never truly understood the youngsters of her generation`s urge and eagerness to abandon what had them all kept sane over the course of their limited lives: Their wild, uncompromising spirit and their irrevocable courage and curiosity solely intrinsic to the nature of a child. And all this fuss in exchange for what? A life of complications, conformity, illusions and delusions? Surely, they all must have been aware of the fact that the process of losing the ability to perceive life`s wonders in their purest, rawest and truest form is not only irreversible, but also deadly to one`s soul in equal measure?
She sighed and paced herself in order to glance over her shoulder to estimate how far she`d walked. She`d accomplished quite the trek to her surprise. The sandy stretch of land she`d set off from had vanished behind a range of velvety dunes. She shrugged and began to examine her environment properly: The landscape had unnoticedly become barren and craggier at some point during her peripatetic reflections, whilst the sea had somewhat changed from a tranquil, sapphire surface to a foaming brew of ferociously mighty waters.
It really was astounding. She didn`t recognise herself. Under normal circumstances, the fact that there wasn`t a single soul in sight would have slightly disconcerted her. Not on this occasion. Not today. She truthfully enjoyed the solitude that had accompanied her on this leisurely walk. "Growing up had been a rather lonely affair, too," she mumbled as she sat down on the edge of a cliff that overlooked the rough ocean.
Naturally, growing up in its most quintessential significance had never truly been her intention, and whilst she must have rather excelled at it - according to the judgement of those closest to her at least - she`d nonetheless secretly invested an equal amount of time and effort into preserving and nurturing that weak flame, that little spark of magic, that had survived that rather venomous transition as she did in giving off the appearance of an adult. Despite running the risk of being shunned, ridiculed and mocked by society, she flung herself into the task of restoring the harmonious peace that had once set the ground tone for her life as a child. Thus, whilst mirroring her contemporaries` desire to become wo(men) of society branded by "respectability, success reputability and responsibility", she also ever so vehemently granted herself moments of freedom, that is, of daydreaming, hours of irrational fantasising and a frequent, if not essential visit to those enchanted, surreal and absurd places fabricated by her dreams born from her own mind.
Occasionally, she would find a shadow of harmonious bliss knotted in the fabric of her reality - in her best friends` light, high and clear laughter perhaps, or in one of her lovers` dimples. Whenever she`d come across the luxury to encounter a rare particle of the magic that made life the grand, extraordinarily mesmerising adventure she`d refused to renounce to unlike others, she`d make sure to absorb every ounce of it and to send it right through the channels of a venous labyrinth of synapses and receptors to the depths of her fantasy and the heights of her imagination. And it was there, somewhere amid the limbo between both, that she`d chosen to create a place that would`t only shelter the fragments of magic, but also preserve the remains of her former, untainted spirit.
With time, Neverland - as she fittingly called it - grew from a quivering flame to an island where absurdity ruled all and rationality was frowned upon, where time was transcendent and limits limitless, where she could sit in a tavern and discuss with her favourite literary characters, where she could paint just like J.M.W. Turner, sail with the most devious pirates or dance with the nymphs of the woods on a full moon.
She`d indeed grown unreservedly fond of her island, except for the fact that she hadn`t ventured to Neverland in a long time.
Ever since she`d begun her adventures around the world on her own terms, she hadn`t felt a desire to return. It wasn`t necessary any longer. Neverland had fulfilled its purpose. It had transmuted into its own fountain of magic and healing, ceaselessly splashing in all of its gentle peace, bliss and harmony whilst seeping into her conscious mind. She suddenly recognised a piece of Neverland wherever she went to. She wasn`t forced to travel into the deepest corners of herself anymore to feel a sea breeze tousling her hair, to let herself be enchanted by a colourful sunset, to laugh - wholeheartedly - or to dance whenever she desired to. No, it was all there, right within and in front of her as a consequence of Neverland having gradually begun to manifest itself in all of her surroundings by restoring the one gift she`d ceaselessly been searching for: The ability to perceive and live life unapologetically through the eyes and spirit of an infant.
Contentedly, she turned her gaze towards the ocean. Whilst she observed the sea, she spotted something rather peculiar; there, contrasting against the sky tinted by the light of the golden hour, pierced a rocky peak through the surface of the salty waters. Certain that it had not been there before, she squinted and gasped in disbelief. What she was staring at wasn`t just a piece of rugged land in the middle of the sea, but one, that shared an eerie, identical resemblance with the island of her imagination. "There you are Neverland!" she cried excitedly. What a mesmerising spectacle it was! From a distance, she even believed to recognise a ship with black sails harbouring in the island`s bay and columns of smoke signals rising above its woods.
Occasionally, she would find a shadow of harmonious bliss knotted in the fabric of her reality - in her best friends` light, high and clear laughter perhaps, or in one of her lovers` dimples. Whenever she`d come across the luxury to encounter a rare particle of the magic that made life the grand, extraordinarily mesmerising adventure she`d refused to renounce to unlike others, she`d make sure to absorb every ounce of it and to send it right through the channels of a venous labyrinth of synapses and receptors to the depths of her fantasy and the heights of her imagination. And it was there, somewhere amid the limbo between both, that she`d chosen to create a place that would`t only shelter the fragments of magic, but also preserve the remains of her former, untainted spirit.
With time, Neverland - as she fittingly called it - grew from a quivering flame to an island where absurdity ruled all and rationality was frowned upon, where time was transcendent and limits limitless, where she could sit in a tavern and discuss with her favourite literary characters, where she could paint just like J.M.W. Turner, sail with the most devious pirates or dance with the nymphs of the woods on a full moon.
She`d indeed grown unreservedly fond of her island, except for the fact that she hadn`t ventured to Neverland in a long time.
Ever since she`d begun her adventures around the world on her own terms, she hadn`t felt a desire to return. It wasn`t necessary any longer. Neverland had fulfilled its purpose. It had transmuted into its own fountain of magic and healing, ceaselessly splashing in all of its gentle peace, bliss and harmony whilst seeping into her conscious mind. She suddenly recognised a piece of Neverland wherever she went to. She wasn`t forced to travel into the deepest corners of herself anymore to feel a sea breeze tousling her hair, to let herself be enchanted by a colourful sunset, to laugh - wholeheartedly - or to dance whenever she desired to. No, it was all there, right within and in front of her as a consequence of Neverland having gradually begun to manifest itself in all of her surroundings by restoring the one gift she`d ceaselessly been searching for: The ability to perceive and live life unapologetically through the eyes and spirit of an infant.
She couldn`t but beam with joy.
"Today, I`ve been reborn," she claimed firmly. "Today, I`ve been reborn on the scintillating, glistening shores of the Colombian coast with the spirit and eyes of a child and the wisdom of an adult after having encountered no one but the manifestation of my inner self. This is my reality now, and should I ever fail again to be courageous enough to recognise, honour and admire the beauty of life, the miracles of existence and the marvels of all kinds sprawling within myself - even if it requires standing against the perception of others on such matters - I vow to think back to this moment and to imminently know what to do."
And without further ado - or caring a jot about the state and opinions of grown ups any loner - she took a deep breath, repositioned herself in accordance to the second star to the right and walked across the dunes straight on `till morning.
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As always:
Thanks for browsing, I hope you enjoyed the read.
À la prochaine & much love,
Hilary Fierce
*All pictures were taken in the North of Colombia in and around Cabo de La Vela and Punta Gallinas.
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