Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things...

Rogers & Hammerstein
The Sound of Music

That was a happy song from one of the most joyful, hopeful movies I’ve ever seen. I find it interesting how movies always seem to have a message in them for us.

There is a new movie that has just been released, Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory. The 1971 version of this movie was a big hit and has become a classic.

It is the story of Charlie, a boy from a poor family. He and his entire family lived in a small, one room house. Charlie had a paper route and his mom worked in a laundry to make ends meet, supporting the whole family. In the story, there is a contest that takes place around the world. The Wonka factory was giving away five golden tickets in their chocolate candy bars and the grand prize winner would get a million dollars and a lifetime supply of chocolate. Charlie dreamed of finding a golden ticket and getting the family out of poverty. As time passed, all the golden tickets had been found.

One day Charlie found some money in the street. He decides to reward himself by getting something to feed his sweet tooth. He bought the biggest bar of chocolate he could find and ate it. Then he decided to buy Grandpa Joe a Wonka chocolate bar. He went back to his bike where all his newspapers were and overheard a crowd of people talking that the golden ticket found in Paraguay was a fake. There’s one more ticket to be found. Charlie then unwrapped the Wonka bar that he bought for Grandpa Joe. He slowly opened it and, to his surprise as well as the people around him, he had found the fifth golden ticket. Charlie goes home to tell the family, who dance around celebrating their good fortune. The Wonka factory tour is the next day. Charlie faces many challenges before the ending of the movie.

The other day my mind was filled with a challenge that I was facing. It was kind of heavy and I really wanted to get these thoughts out of my mind. I kept thinking about it until in my head I heard the words over and over again… “Willy Wonka – Willy Wonka!”

I thought of the Willy Wonka movie that I had seen and then in a dreamlike state, I recalled a simpler time in my life that was like the Wonka factory.

I was in Royal Oak, a town close to where I live and happened to see an interesting place on the corner. It was a candy shop. I went in. To my surprise it was a huge shop filled with every color of chocolate imaginable. They were packaged in plastic bags and were in colors of blue, green, red, brown, black, white, yellow, pink, etc. They had thousands of plastic molds filling these shelves. The molds were for all the holidays and seasons: Christmas trees, bulbs and stars; Easter bunnies; Halloween masks of Frankenstein, Dracula and more; flowers for every season! I was in this kind of incredible store for the first time and was filled with excitement and inspiration. I had never thought of making candy before. I made my purchases and went home.

My family wondered what I was up to as I opened the packages and shared my excitement with them. We all gathered together in my little kitchen. My daughter Theresa, my son Gary, my sister Dannie and I began to melt down the candies in a double boiler saucepan. Then we placed them into the molds and set them into the freezer. We created such colorful candies.

Season after season we continually created our special treasures. I had a box and a huge wicker basket for all of my supplies. Theresa and Gary’s friends would come over and share in this fun candy making. Then the neighborhood kids would come by and they also shared in this fun experience. My tiny kitchen was always full of us kids making chocolate candy. The candies looked so professional and everyone seemed to take so much pride in their projects.

One day I went to get the basket with all the supplies in it and noticed that it had been named. Someone had written the name “Gerri’s Chocolate Factory” on it. I found out that Dannie had written that on the basket because she said it felt like the Wonka Chocolate Factory. We certainly did have our own chocolate factory. We spent so many hours sharing the fun of this experience together – recalling the laughter and closeness warms my heart.

In my dream state, I reminisced over all the holidays and seasons of this candy making time. I smile as I relive these shared memories and feel the joy we all experienced. How proud we were of our prized chocolates!

I came back to the present moment, remembering the challenge in my life. It didn’t seem to matter as much anymore. I continued to focus on the positive and happy times in my life, allowing the challenge I had been facing to just float away from my thoughts. I continued to stay in the joy of the moment and haven’t looked back to what had been consuming my mind. After all, it was so much more enjoyable to reflect on the happy, fun-filled times. As Abraham says, “Don’t think about what is… think of how you are feeling and shift your vibration.” I actually felt the shift take place from the challenge I was facing to the joy I had felt in my heart while in the candy making kitchen. It was that simple. I just shifted my focus and it raised my vibration.

So when we’re feeling discouraged or down, we can just flow into something that makes us happy. A memory is only a thought away.

When the dog bites
When the bee stings
When I’m feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don’t feel so bad!

Gerri Magee is director of advertising and public relations and assistant to the editor of phenomeNEWS. She continues to share her thoughts “On The Path” in this column. You can write her at gerri@phenomenews.com.