A place grownups say doesn’t exist. A place some would say you can only go in your mind. A place children visit everyday. And laugh and play and live as children ought to be able to live.

No, not the ranch, God forbid I talk about children visiting there!!

I’m talking about the place James Barrie created in "Peter Pan".  Tonight Nina, Toby and I went to see Finding Neverland, a film inspired by the events surrounding the writing of the play. It’s an amazing story, a beautiful, sweet, filled with great performances, two-tissue movie.

I left contemplating Neverland, the possibility of its existence and what it really looks like. I wasn’t ever enthralled with the movie versions of Neverland, either animated or live-action. Perhaps that’s why I never bothered to read the book it came from. Now, however, I think I might like to. I’d like to see what kind of images the words conjure in my own mind. Would I see fairies and pirates and mer-people the way the movies make them look? Or would I see creatures far beyond the ability of artists to capture on celluloid.

I’m pretty convinced it’s the latter more than the former. Mom used to tell me all the time I have a very vivid and creative imagination. I’m not sure she always meant that as a compliment, but I always took it as one.   I don’t know how my imagination compares to others. I can’t crawl inside their heads and see…. but I do know I can imagine quite a bit, and always have. As a child, I lived more in my imagination than in the real world. I thought that I would outgrow that once I became a "grownup". I never did. Is that a bad thing??

I don’t visit Neverland like I used to. For many years I left my "adulthood" at the door and stepped into a world of magic and mystery. It’s amazing how adulthood can eventually steal you away from Neverland and keep you tied to the "real world". I was immune to that theft for most of my adult years, with only small bouts of adult-ness. Until last year. "Finding Neverland" points out that the death of someone you love, more than anything, can steal a person away from Neverland and leave them forever trapped in the Land of Adult. But it also brings up a question that has haunted me for ages: when does "believing" in magic and mystery become folly? When does imagination turn into pretense and/or denial of reality?

Can one live Neverland and in the real world? The movie would have us believe James Barrie did. He was Peter Pan, and also playwright J.M. Barrie… boy leader of Neverland’s lost boys and society’s man of the theatre…

But is it just more movie trickery, or can it really be done?