Our Visit to Neverland

“So come with me, where dreams are born, and time is never planned. Just think of happy things, and your heart will fly on wings, forever, in Never Never Land!”

I believe in fairies. And I’m not ashamed to admit it. I mean I don’t go around telling people that, but between you and I, I do.

For a story about fairies, flying, magical places beyond the stars and little boys who won’t grow up, Peter Pan is one of the most relatable stories ever written. As children we shout that we believe in fairies, we dream about what it would be like to fly to Neverland and we keep an ever-watchful eye for pirates.

But then we grow up, and the magic is lost somehow. Until we have our own children. And then, just as Wendy says goodbye to Peter in the end, the magic returns and the story only begins again with our own child.

Yesterday my own two darling children and I hopped on the train to San Francisco, a magical place in itself, to see the live production of Peter Pan at the three sixty Theater. I knew it would be special, but I had no idea it would be the most amazing live theater experience I’d ever seen.

When we saw the real Wendy, John and Michael fly through the air above us along with Peter and Tinkerbell my heart began to race. I looked over at my kids and both of them were sitting there with smiles on their faces and pixie dust in their eyes.

They were mesmerized.

And later when we all shouted that we believed in fairies so that we could save Tink’s life, I felt myself start to cry.

Patrick with Nate Fallows (Peter Pan)

Sometimes as adults the stress of life can be overwhelming. And the magic of childhood is only a distant memory, if we remember it all. But in that moment as I watched Tink light back up I remembered. I remembered what it was like to believe in fairies, and I remembered that magic still exists.

And in the last moments of the show, as Peter Pan smiled at Wendy’s girl Jane, for a moment I looked up and thought maybe somewhere there really is Neverland. Just maybe…

But lucky for us the magic did not end there. Thanks to a very generous invitation from SHNSF we were able to meet up with some of my favorite local bloggers and meet the cast of the show. All of them were so unbelievably sweet to my kids, only reinforcing the magic of the day.

Patrick & Cheyanne with Abby Ford (Wendy Darling)

I love the theater. I love classic books. And I love taking my kids on magical journey’s to places like Neverland. And I love that my kids think Pixie Dust is real and that fairies are never far away. And I won’t ever be the one to tell them otherwise.

“And because Peter never grew up, when Jane had her own children, they flew away with Peter too, and so it will always be, as long as there are children.”

Thanks so much to cast and crew of Peter Pan in San Francisco for an amazing day. And to SHNSF for putting together this event and allowing my kids and I to be a part of it.

Though SHNSF provided tickets to the show I was under no obligation to write this post or in any other way compensated for it.