The reason birds can fly and we can't is simply that they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings.
-The Little White Bird by J.M. Barrie
One thing that most people know about me is that I love Peter Pan. I don't mean I love Disney's Peter Pan only (though I do love it), but the absolutely entrancing story of the little boy who wouldn't grow up. I'm sure my first experience of Peter Pan was the famous rendition of the play starring Mary Martin as Peter Pan. I remember my siblings and I playing Peter Pan ourselves and I was always Smee. I'm not sure why I never chose to be Wendy or even Tinkerbell. They were free since my sister and brother always played Peter and Captain Hook. Smee? I was a weird kid.
Disney's Peter Pan must have come next, though I am inclined to say that I preferred the Mary Martin version simply because my memory holds it more vividly...
Hook was lots of fun, of course, and I always have had a soft spot in my heart for it. It is, in a way, a fracture fairy tale, or at least an alternate fracture fairy tale ending of a beloved story. However, it is the only completely off-base version of Peter's adventures that I can stomach. More on that later, but I think this may have to do with the fact that I saw Hook before ever enbarking on reading the story of Peter Pan.
Needless to say, I was stoked when the 2003 live action Peter Pan movie came out, starring Jeremy Sumpter as Pan and Jason Isaacs and Mr. Darling/Captain Hook (in the traditional manner). In a time when I did not drive at all and rarely made it to town, I went to see the movie in theaters three times (once with such a large group that my now husband was there with his them girlfriend. Coincidentally, I was good friends with his then ex-girlfriend and had gone with her to the movie. Kyle had three generations of girlfriends all watching Peter Pan together... ah, little did he know...) I loved it so much, I could watch it every day. It is still one of my all-time favorite movies.
Then, of course, came Finding Neverland, which was exquisitely done if not entirely accurate.
After seeing all of these different renditions, I finally must have realized that they were based on just one work and read the book. I cannot even tell you how good it is. There is absolutely nothing like it. Read it. It's beautiful, witty, funny, daring, and amazing. It is one of my two very favorite books (yes, friends, I esteem it above Harry Potter. That may come as a shock, but there you go). Craving more, I did my research and found that Barrie had written Peter Pan as a minor character/story in a larger work called The Little White Bird. This book is kind of a hard one to find, and Pan is a character only in a pretty minor chapter, but it's such a lovely little book about a man and a boy in London and it contains several of my favorite quotes. Another one is: "What a ludicrous difference do these two nobodies make to each other." This quote was printed on Kyle's and my wedding programs.
The reason I like the quote about birds, wings, and faith so much is that, in my heart, it makes sense. I do not have perfect faith. I have faith that is true and strong, but it is not perfect. I am a fallible human. My faith gains and loses regularly. Barrie's story of Pan in The Little White Bird is that of his babyhood, and it is explained that babies are birds until they lose faith and can no longer fly. I'm butchering the concept, but in Barrie's wordsmith writing, it is completely beautiful. If I did have perfect faith, I have no doubt that I would fly.
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