“when you wish upon a star — makes no difference who you are…”

Today we wandered through Stage 1 on the Disney lot — the vast and musty stage where, among other things, the opening orchestra scene from “Fantasia”, as well as many scenes from “Mary Poppins” (my favorite Disney movie of all time) were shot.

The place was fragrant with ancient wood and realized dreams. It smelled like magic in there.

We walked through and examined the six different sets being specifically built and dressed for our project. For those who have never experienced anything like this, it is an awe-inspiring thing indeed to have conceived, conjured and created a small world entirely on pixels and paper…and to then see it become solid, whole, and real before your very eyes. In a fucking historical Disney soundstage, no less.

In other words, for a hopeless sap like me — on hallowed ground.

I could scarcely take in all that the sound guy, the camera guy, the art director, and the first assistant director were saying to us on our last swing through before our signing off. All I kept hearing in my head was Julie Andrews jauntily singing, “Just a Spoonful of Sugar.” The profundity of the moment — and all that it represented — overcame me…and I stepped outside. As I stood there, breathing the warm air and wiping the tears from my cheeks, I realized that standing there outside Disney Sound Stage #1…I was finally home. At that exact moment, everything felt, as Mary Poppins would say, “practically perfect in every way.”

Tomorrow morning, call is at 7 a.m. — whereupon, for the first time, I shall walk onto said stage (in my ancient, green Chucks, of course)…a writer and producer of a Disney project. I am dazed and humbled by my good fortune.

Cue Jiminy Cricket’s themesong here.

About muffybolding

Muffy Bolding is a mother/writer/actor/knitter/feminist/withered debutante who likes the smell of asparagus pee, and remains obsessed with the bathroom hygiene of her three children -- despite the fact that they are 23, 19, and 16. She is blissfully married to a cute Jewish boy who looks like Willie Wonka, but remains tragically in love with the dead poet, Ted Hughes. She has the mouth of a Teamster, and her patron saint is Rocco (pestilence relief.) Ms. Bolding lives in Southern California, where she enjoys typing words, making movies, and plucking the rings from the fingers of the dead. She was the co-creator and Editor-in-Chief of the award winning satire zine, Fresno Lampoon, and in between writing screenplays, carnival barking, and savagely threatening her trio of darling larvae with a wooden spoon, she currently publishes the zine, "Withered Debutante." More of her work can also be found in the anthology, "Mamaphonic: Balancing Motherhood and Other Creative Acts", the compilation zine, "Mamaphiles III: Coming Home", as well as in The Cortland Review and hipmama.com. She is currently writing and producing for film and television, and working on a book of essays entitled, "Inside A Chinese Dragon." She has slept around, but not nearly as much as she would have liked.

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