Roald Dahl: The bicycle

"It was my first term and I was walking home alone across the village green after school when suddenly one of the senior twelve-year-old boys came riding full speed down the road on his bicycle about twenty yards away from me. The road was on a hill and the boy was going down the slope, and he flashed by he started backpedalling very quickly so that the free-wheeling mechanism of his bike made a loud whirring sound. At the same time, he took his hands off the handlebars and folded them casually across his chest. I stopped dead and stared after him. How wonderful he was! How swift and brave and graceful in his long trousers with bicycle-clips around them and his scarlet school cap at a jaunty angle on his head! One day I told myself, one glorious day I will have a bike like that and I will wear long trousers with bicycle-clips and my school cap will sit jaunty on my head and I will go whizzing down the hill pedaling backwards with no hands on the handlebars!" -From Boy, The bicycle and the sweet-shop


I wanted to post this passage because I want everyone to remember those moments infinite moments when you were a kid. When you looked at life in pure amazement and adoration, and dreamed about the person you could be.

After reading this story, I remembered again why I loved Roald Dahl so much as a child. His words truly get at a magic and sense of child-like fantasy that takes you back to the days when you were free of the world's pressures, and could look up to the sky for whole minutes and hours in ignorant, wondrous bliss.

Toy Story 3: The End

::Sigh:: Toy Story 3--the ending of probably the most treasured animated story of our generation. And with this last installment, I think it's safe to say that Pixar blew our minds in ways we weren't expecting. Whether it's the phenomenal short, Day and Night (see it in 3D!), the character depth, or the darker tone, Toy Story ended the trilogy in the most impactful way. But of course, what everyone is really talking about is the last 30 minutes of the movie--the ending of it all. 

If you didn't cry during the last half hour of this movie, you must be a robot, because everyone I've talked to says they did. I won't go into what exactly happened in case some of you haven't seen it, but as you probably know, Andy does end up giving his toys away. Let's just say that the whole a affair is a LOT more emotional than you could ever imagine.
 

With my personal experience in seeing the ending, I cried among many other things because I felt an overwhelming sadness that this wonderful story, these beloved characters were all coming to an end. I thought about how when Toy Story started, I was Andy's age, and that I had grown up with this story too. I felt this strange loss within myself. Just like Andy, I was losing these toys too. 

Given the experience I had in the movie theater with Toy Story 3, here is my interpretation of the epic ending to this tale: 

 Andy represents the audience--the entire generation that grew up with this story. As I said before, our generation was about Andy's age when this story started, so his growing up experience mirrors ours. I believe the message that Toy Story 3 leaves with us is all about growing up--how it makes us change, the things we have to lose, but also the childhood innocence that will always be in our hearts.

Like Andy, we too had to let go of our childhood relics. The playground days had to end. But what we took from that precious time is still part of who we are. The toys we loved, the games we played helped us grow. And even if those toys and those games are long gone, we are still children at heart because the memories and connections we had to that time are still alive. 

No matter how old we grow, we will always have times when we feel like our childhood selves who cried over broken toys and scraped knees. And whose imaginations were so wild and carefree, and hearts so full of love, that all we wanted to do was just cuddle up with our toys and play.