Life, Animated Page #5

when he was nine at teeny, tiny bits.

When you grow up,

you lose all your magical,

enchanted childhood times.

This wasn't just a sentence.

This was a complex sentence

of a complex thought,

of something that

we didn't even see,

and all the sudden

it became clear to us.

He's using these movies

to make sense of the world

he actually is living in: our world.

But I said to Ron, "You

know, we've got to try and figure out

if we can have him

talk to us at all."

So I go up to his room.

I see Owen on the bed,

flipping through a Disney book,

and I see,

sort of over to my left...

I see Lago, the Funnel.

Now, lago is the evil sidekick

to the villain Jafar from Aladdin.

- Now, I know Owen loves this puppet.

- Jafar, Jafar! Get a grip!

I grab the puppet,

I pull it up to my elbow,

and I begin to crawl across

the rug as quietly as I can,

and Owen turns to the puppet

like he's bumping into

an old friend.

I say to him, "Owen, Owen,

how does it feel to be you?"

And I said, "Not good,

'cause I don't have any friends."

Now, I'm under the bedspread,

and I just bite down hard,

you know.

I just say to myself,

"Stay in character,"

and I say, "Okay, okay.

"Owen, when did you and I

become such good friends?"

And he said, "When I watched Aladdin,

you made me laugh."

And then we talk, Owen and lago,

for a minute, minute and a half.

It's the first conversation

we've ever had.

And then all of a sudden,

I hear him say...

I love the way

your foul little mind works.

That's the next line of dialogue.

That's Jafar, the villain,

to his evil sidekick, lago.

I love the way

your foul little mind works.

And then I run down and grab Cornelia.

I'm like, "He's memorized

all the movies.

"I mean, he's memorized them all.

If you throw him a line of dialogue,

he'll throw you back the next line."

And at that point,

it was like a window opened,

like a light went on,

and we began to speak to him

in Disney dialogue, the whole family.

I memorized every Disney

animated movie ever made.

I memorized the credits,

and that's how I taught myself to read.

It felt like a great, wonderful...

world of enchantment.

When we'd be down in

the basement watching movies,

when it would kind of

all come together where,

you know, that's when

we drew Owen out.

And these were hand-drawn figures

with exaggerated expression,

exaggerated emotion.

It was easier for him

to interpret all of this.

I think the idea

that it never changes,

and everything else

is changing constantly...

Every other part of his life.

Our lives, as his parents,

we're getting older.

You know,

Walter's getting older.

You know, people are dying.

Everything's changing,

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