Our friend Lisa Dingle braved the snow and ice storm to come to Cambridge and attend the reception for my photo show with George Forss, we wanted her to stay over for many reasons, including the weather, and she got to experience our heatless attic, but she is a hardy girl, she fared well. This morning we took  her out to breakfast at the Round House, Scott Carrino, the owner came by to join us for a few minutes.

Lisa and I, it turns out, are Disney World lovers. She is  a Wilderness Lodge type – hearty, jovial, big family packing around, I am a Polynesian Village type, stay on the monorail, look out at the Magic Kingdom fireworks at night. Lisa is going in May, I am aching to go but not this year for sure. I love Disney World, I’ve been there a dozen times, written about it for magazines, I would so love to be there right now amid all this mud, muck and ice.

Scott is a genuine 60’s child, like many he resists the idea of Disney, he is an organic  ex-hippie into the woods type, he can’t wait to get into his sugar house and make some maple syrup while drinking good old Scotch. His idea of a vacation is not blowing thousands of dollars to look at small people in Mouse suits but camping out in the woods. You either love Disney World or you don’t. Lisa and I do. Scott was frowning in disapproval as Lisa and I were trading Disney World tips and stories and memories – I took my daughter there when she was 18 months old, she dislikes it and won’t go now – too corporate. If she ever has a kid, she says, I can take him or her. Like Scott, she doesn’t care for  Disney’s cheerful, corporate ethos.

I told Scott about the very conflicted man Disney was, how he could be brutal to his employees, sexist and cheap, he also was a technological utopian, dreaming of turning EPCOT center into a life-long haven for Disney World employees (free health care, housing, education) that would have made the socialist ideologies look like the Tea Party. Scott frowned and said he knew someone who had worked as one of the Disney characters – Mickey Mouse- and he wasn’t treated well. I think he expected us to disapprove. Lisa and I both looked out at the snow and ice on the streets, and we both yelled at the same time: “we don’t care!”

I remember standing in front of Cinderella’s Castle, tears streaming down my face as I held hand with Maria and listened to various Disney Characters sing “Dreams Do Come True.”  They do, they do, just my sitting there with Maria and Scott and Lisa was one.

We smacked Scott around for 10 or 15 more minutes, told him about our adventures on Splash Mountain, how we knew people who sprinkled some of their family member’s ashes in the Haunted House,  where the good restaurants were, what the best rides were,  and then he shook his head and retreated to the kitchen and Lisa took off for home. I would give a lot to be sitting on a chaise lounge at the Polynesian Village tonight, getting read to go find some Florida Stone Crabs, maybe taking Maria over to Splash Mountain or “It’s A Small, Small World.” I don’t care whether Disney is sweet to their employees, I want to be there.

But the funny thing was, sitting there in that cafe, drinking great-tasting decaf coffee, surrounded by my friends, my life, looking out at the freezing slush and snow, I couldn’t have felt warmer or more at peace. We can go to Disney World – I  hope to soon – or we can make our own.