Disney Dreams continued...
A Spark Submerged
After a number of weeks of hanging out in the synthetic and soupy tropics, dodging afternoon rain and thunderstorms, dealing with demanding and sometimes disgruntled guests, and reciting the spiel and guiding the cruise multiple times a day, day after day, the whole gig began to feel more like work than fantasy. I also didn’t feel the same connection with these Disney college kids that I had experienced with the pages. For one thing, there were many more students in the college program, and our living quarters were spread out over a large apartment complex rather than consolidated on two floors of an office building. Although I had two other roommates, we each had our own rooms, and our schedules rarely coincided. I hardly ever saw them. I did have a friend from Birmingham-Southern whom I was kind of dating at the time. And I often hung out with her and her roommates and their friends. I say “kind of” dating as she had first asked me to one of her sorority parties back at BSC earlier that year, and I had reciprocated with dinner and a movie. We had also started spending time together on the swings near the intramural field, sharing about our freshman days and some of our future dreams. Working at Disney emerged as an aspiration shared.
I don’t remember thinking that my “girlfriend” and I were going to Disney for the summer, but rather that I was going to Disney and a friend of mine was going as well. I’m not sure how she saw it, but I had this need to maintain an independence, almost a separateness, from my coed friend. I liked her a lot. Found her to be bright, fun, thoughtful, and very attractive. But my peculiarities were emerging once again, staking their claim on me, and constructing a type of invisible wall between us, not allowing me to get too close physically or emotionally.
I do remember sharing my favorite spots of the Polynesian Village with her, lying in a hammock together and watching the Electrical Water Pageant on Seven Seas Lagoon with Handel’s Water Music broadcasting in the background. And we spent many an evening together in the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, or the Studios. But she also enjoyed going out later than I and gathering with other fun-loving extraverted night-owls in the multiple dance and nightclubs of Pleasure Island. She began meeting other interested guys. One in particular worked with me on the Jungle Cruise. And although I felt some resentment and even jealousy as they began spending more time together, I wasn’t willing or able to offer her any more of myself.
By mid-summer, even as I was around crowds of people most of every day, I began to experience a loneliness like I’d not experienced before — a loneliness instigated by an inability to access a deeper intimacy, I think. On one hand, I really wished I could experience more physical and emotional closeness with my female classmate from BSC. And on the other hand was a more unconscious and yet equally arresting dilemma. Although I never articulated this for myself at the time, I think I yearned for a deeper connection with some of the other guys in the college program.
In retrospect, if I’d felt free enough to explore these attractions (I worked all summer on a ride with all males for Christ’s sake) whether physical, intellectual, or emotional, surely, I would have felt more instinctive energy and enthusiasm. Isn’t this the way most “straight” folks get to be and feel? Free to explore their natural interests and attractions? As it stood, I was left with a subliminal ache and yet loathing, a spark submerged whose inverse symptoms were all I could feel: dullness, detachment, and perhaps early signs of depression. I declined to attend our end-of-summer formal. Despite my absence, my schoolmate effectively lobbied all in attendance on my behalf and presented me the next day with the “Most likely to be Disney CEO” Award. I was touched and also a bit regretful that I hadn’t sucked up my self-loathing lip especially for this last evening. I do still have a group picture from that night of all the college Jungle Cruise Skippers with one of them appropriately and with fondness I think, giving me the bird.
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