Peter Pan

"I don't know whether you have ever seen a map of a person's mind. Doctors sometimes draw maps of other parts of you, and your own map can become intensely interesting, but catch them trying to draw a map of a child's mind, which is not only confused, but keeps going round all the time. There are zigzag lines on it just like your temperature on a card, and these are probably roads in the island; for the Neverland is always more or less an island, with astonishing splashes of colour here and there, and coral reefs and rakish-looking craft in the offing, and savages and lonely lairs, and gnomes who are mostly tailors, and caves through which a river runs, and princes with six elder brothers, and a hut fast going to decay, and one very small old lady with a hooked nose. It would be an easy map if that were all; but there is also first day at school, religion, fathers, the round pond, needlework, murders, hangings, verbs that take the dative, chocolate pudding day, getting into braces, say ninety-nine, three-pence for pulling your tooth out yourself, and so on; and either these are a part of the island or they are other maps showing through, and it is all rather confusing, especially as nothing will stand still." (Chapter One)

I didn't realize until this morning that the beloved version of J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan I'd read as a child, and remember so fondly, was abridged. Honestly, it makes perfect sense now, since it was in a whole collection of stories (followed by Rackety-Packety House, another favorite). But today...I was absolutely charmed by Barrie's account of good mothers tidying up their children's minds in the night so that when the children awake in the morning, "the naughtiness and evil passions with which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind; and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out your prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on." We laughed at silly proud Mr. Darling and his medicine, and felt so sorry for poor Nana tied up in the yard. "I don't remember any of this," I thought as I read. I think the version I read skipped the first chapters entirely, except for the part where Peter loses his shadow in the slammed window. I can't believe what I missed! What a shame I never read this version as a child. On the other hand, I'll get to discover a story that I already love with my children.

We are all in for a treat.

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Added the next day: Last night I dreamed of Neverland all night long. I dreamed I was Peter Pan, then Tinkerbell, flying over the island. Not the Disney Peter Pan. My dreams prompted a breakfast table discussion of what it might be like to live the reality of the fantasy of a never-ending childhood.

Today we read of Peter trying to attach his shadow with soap, a petulant fairy, flight out the nursery window, Nana and the Darlings dashing up the stairs too late. The fine young gents are outside this afternoon, playing at Peter Pan and the Lost Boys. There's a fairy sketch on the schoolwork sitting in my basket, and someone dug the fairy wings out from the bottom of the dress-up box. This story has captured us.