Even Lilliputian dreams are worth dreaming
My kids weren't too old to play at Valencia's Gulliver Park. And neither were we.
Call it my Lilliputian dream.
To bring my kids to Spain, so I could show them where I lived in college and take them to this whimsical park inspired by Gulliver Travels.
It wasn’t exactly a small dream, but for many years, it felt titanic.
The first part of this dream started as soon as I found out I was pregnant with Julian in 2006. I was 23 and just two years removed from living in southern Spain for my junior year of college. I was excited to become a parent, and also heartbroken that, in order to do so, I would have to set aside my plans to hit the road again.
Before too long, I had two little ones under the age of four, and those dreams of taking them — one day, ojalá — to see where I lived in Alicante was one of the only things that got me through the days when every extra cent I had went to daycare and diapers.
Fast forward to 2015, when I traveled back to Spain, alone, to nurse a broken heart. I still couldn’t really afford even a solo trip, but I needed the new perspective more than the money I’d stashed away in my savings account.
That’s how I found myself, a single mom traveling without her kids for the first time, backpacking through some of my favorite cities in Spain.
On one of those June afternoons, during a quick stop in Valencia, I put on my running shoes.
I’d never seen the architectural wonder that is Santiago Calatrava’s Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias. (Calatrava is the architect behind those stunning white bridges in downtown Dallas, and the new Oculus Transportation Hub at the World Trade Center site in New York City.)
As I came upon the impossibly bright blue water surrounding these sprawling buildings, I stopped running long enough to catch my breath and record a video for my dad.
He loved to travel, and I wanted to send him a little surprise. “Hi, Dad! I just wanted to send a video to say hi and Happy Father’s Day, and show you this beautiful place that I probably would never have seen if you hadn’t given me the gumption to get out and see the world.”
If I’d known he’d be gone 3 1/2 years later, I would have insisted that he and I start planning one last trip of our own.
But this isn’t a story about grief.
It’s a story about a dream. One that was about to get even more precise just a few minutes later.
As I continued on my run, I stumbled upon something nearby that I never knew existed and would become something of a new obsession: Parque Gulliver, a 70-meter playscape in the shape of a man sprawled out on the ground.
I knew the reference immediately. In Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, the shipwrecked main character wakes up on the island of Lilliput, where the residents, the Lilliputians, stand only about six inches high and have tied him down with ropes.
My own children were thousands of miles from me, and I remember the pang of missing them so clearly. My heart was hurting because they weren’t there to share this discovery with me, but rather than linger in the sadness, I decided in that moment to stop dreaming and start planning.
I didn’t know when, or how, I would bring them to this park, but I was determined to return one day.
It was always one day. Until one day became “today.”
During our familymoon last month, I planned for us to spend exactly one day in Valencia.
So we could see Gulliver. Together.
I kept the park a secret from them, using the Calatrava architecture as the excuse to visit Valencia.
I wanted us to “stumble” upon the park, just like I had in 2015.
So, we wandered around the bright blue pools, and then headed just a few blocks north, where I knew the playground had been delighting so many thousands of children since it opened in the early 1990s.
My kids aren’t small children any more. At 16 and 12, they are old enough to not really play at playgrounds like they used to. But when we finally came upon the oversized Gulliver, they were like moths to a flame.
Frank and I were going to simply watch them play, but before long, we, too, were scaling Gulliver’s belt, finding our own little perch from which to enjoy this most magical scene. (As you can tell, we were too busy playing to take very many pictures.)
We spent the last hour of daylight that day with Gulliver, marveling at all these children who hadn’t flown halfway across the world for this playdate.
I kept thinking, “This is what it feels like when your wildest dreams come true.”
Not just bringing the boys to Spain or to this very park, but finding someone like Frank to share it with. And raising curious, delightful, respectful young men who actually want to spend time with both their mom — and their dad, who has been nothing but a supportive co-parent during these transformative years.
I spent my 20s and 30s going first on a lot of really hard stuff: Losing my closest friend to an alcohol-induced accident. Having kids right out of college. Getting divorced by the time I was 30. Losing a parent, leaving a career.
So I wanted to relish this moment of doing something that I very much planned.
I don’t want to forget what it felt like for my deepest, truest dream to become a reality.
I’m writing about this because I want all of us to hold onto our dreams, no matter how big or how small, and no matter our circumstances.
These dreams are what get us through the hardest times.
They give us motivation to keep working toward the thing we want the most.
Hi, subscriber friends!
Quick zine update: The debut issue of The Feminist Kitchen zine are en route from the printer and will be headed to your house by the end of next week!
I can’t wait to get them in your hands. Thank you so much for your support in the next evolution of this project.
Sending all my best, as always.
Addie
Beautiful illustrations in writing and photos of dreams coming true. Love that your story includes vivid memories and dreams and heartaches … writing as yummy as the colorful foods, places and children (and Husband now!) who make up your staples!
Fun stuff, Addie!