11 Magical Things That Turn Grown Adults Into Delightful Children

Because wonder does not have an expiration date

There comes a point in adulthood when joy becomes suspiciously complicated.

We start searching for elaborate ways to rediscover childlike joy, forgetting that the answer is often hiding in the simple pleasures for adults we’ve trained ourselves to overlook.

We convince ourselves that pleasure must be earned. We need to finish the laundry, return the email, organize the drawer, schedule the colonoscopy, and determine why the television suddenly refuses to recognize the remote it has known for six years.

Only then, perhaps, may we enjoy ourselves.

Children have no such policy. They see a bubble floating through the air and immediately understand that this is now the most important event of the day.

Perhaps they know something we have forgotten.

We cannot permanently return to childhood, of course. Someone still has to pay the electric bill, and after a certain age, sleeping on the floor requires both advance planning and an orthopedic consultation.

But there are little things that can bring us back—not to childhood itself, but to that delicious state of being completely delighted by something that serves no practical purpose whatsoever.

1. A Proper Fort

It can be a treehouse, a tent, a blanket draped over two chairs, or an unnecessarily elaborate arrangement of sofa cushions.

A fort does not need plumbing, architectural approval, or adequate resale value. Its only purpose is to provide a small private kingdom where the outside world cannot reach you.

Bring a book. Bring snacks. Bring a glass of wine if your kingdom permits alcohol.

Then crawl inside and enjoy the strange satisfaction of being unavailable to everyone who thinks you should be doing something more productive.

2. Talking to a Dog Like You Share a Language

Perfectly intelligent adults become entirely different people in the presence of a dog.

Suddenly, we are asking, “Who is the most handsome gentleman in the entire metropolitan area?” in a voice several octaves above our normal range.

We develop elaborate nicknames. We narrate the dog’s thoughts. We conduct both sides of long conversations and assign the animal opinions about the neighbors.

The dog may understand six words, but this does not stop us from explaining where we are going, when we will return, and why he cannot come because the dentist has rules.

Dog talk is absurd, intimate, and completely sincere.

If that isn’t magic, I don’t know what is.

3. Bubbles

A bubble is essentially soap wearing evening clothes.

We understand that it is only a thin film of liquid filled with air, yet the moment one floats past us, we want to touch it, follow it, blow it higher, and see how long it can survive.

Then someone produces a larger bubble wand, and suddenly a friendly afternoon has become an international competition.

Who can make the biggest one? Who can keep one floating the longest? Who can catch one without popping it?

There are no prizes. There is no point. Everyone is completely invested.

That is precisely why it is wonderful.

4. Finding an Excellent Stick

Not every stick is an excellent stick. Adults know this instinctively.

An excellent stick has balance. Character. Perhaps a slight curve at the top. It may be a walking staff, a conductor’s baton, or the sort of enchanted object one uses to place a mild but inconvenient curse upon a former supervisor.

If your companion finds one too, the situation may escalate into swordplay.

This will continue until one stick breaks or somebody remembers that a sudden twisting motion now requires two days of recovery.

5. Discovering a Beautiful Rock

There are ordinary rocks, and then there are rocks that demand to be picked up.

Perhaps it has an unusual color, a streak of quartz, a perfect smoothness, or a tiny fossil embedded inside it. Whatever the reason, you recognize immediately that this rock is coming home with you.

Adults will spend thousands of dollars furnishing a house and still display a rock they found beside a lake because it “looked interesting.”

I find this deeply reassuring.

Somewhere beneath all our sophistication, we remain creatures who can be thrilled by a shiny object lying in the dirt.

6. A Water-Balloon Battle

A water-balloon fight begins with optimism and ends with betrayal.

At first, everyone agrees to basic rules. No throwing at faces. No attacking anyone who is unarmed. No targeting the person holding the drinks.

Within four minutes, civilization collapses.

People hide behind patio furniture. Alliances are formed and abandoned. Someone discovers the garden hose and becomes intoxicated with power.

The body may be older, but the competitive instincts remain astonishingly well preserved.

7. Bubble Wrap

Some pleasures require explanation. Bubble wrap does not.

You see it. You press one bubble. It pops.

Then you press another.

Soon you are working your way through the entire sheet with the concentration of a concert pianist, mildly irritated when someone suggests saving it for packing.

Saving it for what? This is what it was born to do.

The smaller bubbles offer quantity. The larger ones provide drama. Both are more satisfying than many activities involving monthly membership fees.

8. Anything Operated by Remote Control

Give an adult a remote-control car, boat, drone, or miniature excavator and watch every respectable instinct leave the body.

We do not merely drive it. We create challenges. We construct courses. We attempt maneuvers well beyond our skill level and become emotionally invested in the performance of a machine we met nine minutes ago.

Put several adults together with remote-control vehicles, a few folding chairs, and a cooler, and you have created an afternoon’s entertainment.

Possibly a league.

Definitely an argument about whose turn it is.

9. The First Look Inside a Hotel Room

There is a particular ritual that happens when we enter a hotel room for the first time.

We inspect everything.

We open the curtains with theatrical flair. We test the bed. We examine the view, even when the view is an air-conditioning unit and the far edge of a parking structure.

We look inside the minibar despite having no intention of paying eleven dollars for an almond.

For a few moments, the room is not simply a place to sleep. It is a new little life. We imagine morning coffee by the window, an elegant evening drink, and the possibility that we are now the sort of person who uses a hotel robe before dinner.

Travel does that beautifully. It allows us to walk through a door and become slightly different people on the other side.

10. Glow Sticks After Dark

In daylight, a glow stick is a cheap plastic tube.

At night, it becomes an event.

Bracelets appear. Necklaces are made. Someone begins waving two of them around with the confidence of a trained performer and the coordination of a man looking for the bathroom in the dark.

Add music and we are transported back to younger nights—although now we would prefer the music at a reasonable volume and would like to be home by ten.

This is not a loss of enthusiasm. It is enthusiasm with a bedtime.

11. An Empty Swing

There is something irresistible about an unoccupied swing.

We may walk past an entire playground without interest, but if no children are waiting and one swing is moving gently in the breeze, the temptation arrives.

We sit down. We push off.

For the first few seconds, it feels awkward. Then the rhythm returns. The ground falls away beneath our feet, the air catches our face, and the years briefly loosen their grip.

We do not become younger.

We simply remember that the person we once were is still in there.

Bonus Magic: The Luggage Aisle

I cannot pass a luggage aisle.

It does not matter whether I am in an elegant department store, a discount warehouse, or a shop where the suitcase is displayed between gardening tools and industrial quantities of mayonnaise. I must stop.

I roll the bags. I test the handles. I inspect the compartments as though I have been hired by an international luggage authority.

Because a new suitcase is never just a suitcase.

It is a promise.

It suggests train platforms, hotel lobbies, unfamiliar streets, and mornings when you wake up somewhere you have never been before. It carries the delicious possibility that another version of your life is waiting just beyond the departure gate.

That is the secret behind all these small wonders. They do not make us childish. They remind us that adulthood was never supposed to mean becoming permanently unimpressed.

So build the fort. Talk nonsense to the dog. Pocket the beautiful rock. Step onto the swing.

And if you happen to pass the luggage aisle, go ahead and stop.

There may still be an adventure with your name on it—and darling, it will need a bag.