Alice in Wonderland means so much to me
Probably something one might not expect me to say and also probably just a weird thing for anyone to say in general, but it’s true.
Today I was reading a fiction piece in the New Yorker (by Murakami, no less), and there was a reference to Alice and her cast of crazy friends. This immediately reminded me of the fact that Alice in Wonderland holds a special place in my heart, even if I hadn’t thought of that in a very long time.
I am actually not exactly sure when I fell in love with the concept of Wonderland, but it probably was because of the Disney movie. Maybe my mom read us the stories in kids’ books too, in fact, that probably was it, actually. But that really doesn’t matter. What matters is how much I identified with Alice, in the sense that, I liked living in a fantasy world with weird things and weird people.
Then in high school during my stint in drama club, I played the King of Hearts. I wore tights for the role. It was an interesting exploration of creativity and gender boundaries, playing the male succumbing to the female’s demands, often sheepishly. And I had an incredibly amazing time practicing and finally performing said play!
To tie it back all together, the concept of Alice existing in a sort of altered reality, of having interesting experiences with seemingly impossible and other-worldly people is a big part of my life, the idea of expanding one’s universe and consciousness to an enhanced and almost psychedelic euphoric state at times is something that I am super into, whether it’s through meditation or deeper reading and understanding of the meaning of existence, or other things I won’t go into detail here.
