Return to the Enchanted World

by Guylaine Tousignant

“[i]f the writer cuts himself off from his childhood, his roots, his oneiric ancestral memory, he deprives himself of all his artistic means.”

—Jacques Derrida

“I really wanted to go back to being playful, just having fun with the materials and not worrying about perfection.”

—jenna dawn maclellan

The enchanted world was not invented by Walt Disney. It is a world as old as the world, a place of magic, where reality is lost in dream, and dream in reality. It is the land of childhood. It is a land that always lies within us, whether we want it to or not.

When we leave it, it calls us back. When we try to forget it, it calls us out. It wields a force over us that can attract or repel us, like a black bear in a garbage dump.

There is magic in this place where we first played, where we threw our first stones, where we imagined what life might be, where we built it for ourselves with the tools and materials at hand: a chainsaw, some wood, a shovel, some snow, scissors, some fabric, pencils, and a little cardboard.

This place is the cabin and the bonfire.

To remember it is to travel freely in a world of the imagination. During winter, we remember ourselves picnicking in our favourite summer dress, gathering snowballs; during summer, we take snowmobiles through trails coloured with crushed berries.

In the image, the cord of wood is always perfectly there.

Shooting stars fall from the sky in all seasons. Wishes will come true.

Life, as seen through memory, whether it’s our own or someone else’s, is like a dream that’s real. We know that life is not like that, but we don’t know that we know it, and it’s good that way.

This enchanted world is where we must go when we forget how we ever came to grow up, when we forget how to be children.

In that moment, it’s always good to go back home.