3 things I want to remember about play

Stuart Brown, MD, the director of The National Institute for Play, says that people who do not engage in play pose a health risk: stress-related diseases, depression, addictions, interpersonal violence, and so on. Statements like these interest me, but they rarely cause me to make any real changes in my life. Like most folks, until I am personally affected I can coast along letting good enough be good enough.

But since it’s time for me to post a blog entry, and since I’ve had a heavier than usual work schedule and have neglected play lately, I’ve come up with 3 statements about what I know about myself regarding play. These 3 statements are now written on my bathroom mirror (I’ve also drawn a nifty lipstick rendering of a balloon ninja girl).  

1. Play is not frivolous.
The truly great advances of this generation will be made by those who can make outrageous connections, and only a mind which knows how to play can do that. -Nagle Jackson

No matter how many times I’ve returned to a work project with clearer thinking, renewed enthusiasm, greater efficiency, and even flashes of brilliance after taking a play break, I can still forget how amazingly beneficial play is, regarding it as something to do only AFTER I’ve finished working. What hooey!

Dr. Brown points out that even animals seem to play, even though what matters most in the animal kingdom is survival. When I relegate play to the "When I have leftover time" category, I shift into bare essential survival mode. I start confusing being reverent with being serious, at which point I go about my work, and my life, all wrong.

Tootsie with some of her favorite toys. RIP, sweet Tootsie.

2. I’m happier when I play.
We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing. -Benjamin Franklin

Dr. Brown goes so far as to say that the opposite of play is depression. And as anyone who has experienced depression knows, when you're in the midst of depression, it's pretty much impossible to motivate yourself to play.

For me to feel playful, it helps to remember how I liked to play as a child. This reflection usually points me to the forms of play that I enjoy most right now.

As a child I liked to— 

• Ride my bicycle. I still love to ride my bike around the neighborhood. Heading in the direction of distant music from the ice cream truck means that it's going to be a super fun ride. A few years ago I biked from Tucson to Mexico...what a blast! 

• Form bands in friends’ garages. Only a few minutes of running my fingers over the piano keys makes space in my body and mind like nothing else can. (Funny that I now record songs using an app called Garage Band.)

• Tell stories. Blogging was something that I swore off for years. While I haven't yet found my full-on blog groove, blogging is becoming more and more like storytelling play to me.

• Do flips. "Flips" is the word that my friends and I used for moving our body. Many of my happiest moments still involve some kind of body movement: yoga, kickboxing, busting a move for no reason when nobody is looking.

• Make funny noises. I still make funny noises. 

• Rollerskate. When heelies came out I had a flashback rush of joy and bought a pair immediately. I'm still a little afraid of them and they mainly stay in my closet, but I haven't given up on messing around with these. Just seeing the box makes me happy.

• Cook with my Easy Bake Oven. The kitchen is a giant laboratory for me to mix this with that. I can get lost in food play for hours.

• Play School and Haunted House. I had to be the teacher...or the main ghost.

Schoolmarm/ghost hybrid

3. Play makes relationships something special.
You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. -Plato

When I meet someone, I like to imagine how they might describe themselves in a personal ad—if total honesty were such a thing in those ads (I like to imagine a personal ad description for myself too—on the “good” days and on the "feel like pooey" days). 

If I were looking for friendship, a romantic connection, or a work relationship, if the person wrote I do not play, no matter how many other amazing qualities they listed...NEXT!

I would totally answer their personal ad. 

If I Had My Life to Live Over, by Nadine Stair (age 85)

I'd dare to make more mistakes next time.

I'd relax, I would limber up.

I would be sillier than I have been this trip.

I would take fewer things seriously.

I would take more chances.

I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers.

I would eat more ice cream and less beans.

I would perhaps have more actual troubles, 

but I'd have fewer imaginary ones.

You see, I'm one of those people who live 

sensibly and sanely hour after hour, 

day after day.

Oh, I've had my moments,

And if I had it to do over again, 

I'd have more of them.

In fact, I'd try to have nothing else.

Just moments, one after another,

instead of living so many years ahead of each day.

I've been one of those people who never goes anywhere 

without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a raincoat

and a parachute.

If I had to do it again, I would travel lighter than I have.

If I had my life to live over,

I would start barefoot earlier in the spring

and stay that way later in the fall.

I would go to more dances.

I would ride more merry-go-rounds.

I would pick more daisies.

An intimate tribute to my sweetheart

At the end, one didn't remember life as a whole but just a string of moments. -David Levien

I love how he thinks about money. We’d like to have a house on the beach someday, but unless it’s earned by doing what we love, we’ll be happy landlocked. I love that our money is spent on great coffee, books, music, and home and car maintenance instead of dinners out and new furniture. I love that he gives gifts to our mail carrier and to the woman who cuts his hair.

I love that neither of us wants children but that he would consider having a pig for a pet at some point, and that he gives real thought to my questions about what a pig might eat or whether a dog might pick a fight with a pig as I walk it down the street. I love that he checks the locks, the lights, the stove, and the faucets a second time before coming to bed.

I love that he says that he won’t stay up late, then I feel him snuggle in way past midnight. I love that he twitches and heats up when he’s dreaming. I love that he dreams. I love that he’s a sleepyhead in the morning and how it feels to slip out of his arms when I get out of bed to go downstairs for coffee and morning writing. I love putting a pillow beside him and tucking the blanket around his chin when I go. I love that he has the coffee beans ground and that all I have to do is add water and press the button.

I love that we pretend to punch and throw high kicks at each other. I love that he’d rather poke himself in the eye than watch the Super Bowl. I love that he reads the obituaries. I love that the TV stays off almost all the time at our house. I love that he gets excited over Apple products and puts songs that he thinks I’ll like on my iPod without asking.

I love how he enjoys working out with weights and eating ice cream and potato chips. I love that he enters all of his expenses on a spreadsheet and backs up his computer every day, sometimes more than once each day. I love that he reminds me to back up my computer so that my writing won’t be lost and asks me to email him a copy just to make sure. I love that we sometimes stay in our pajamas all day.

I love that he tells me when I poot on him during the night and how he tries not to laugh. I love that he sometimes cries when he hears about violence and war and people being mean. I love that he pretends to be my butler and bows before leaving the room. I love when he impersonates our dentist.

I love that he sent me and my sister for a spa day when she was having a rough time. I love that when I talk about a dream that I have for my life, he says, “You’ve got to do it, Sweets!” I love that we made a song in Garage Band called “Gonna Kill You.”

I love that when I challenged him to a race in the long corridor of a hotel, he took off at breakneck speed, leaving me laughing so hard that I had to stop. I love that he must have time alone every day, sometimes much time, sometimes for many days. I love that when I leave for days or weeks that he loves his life, and that we sing a song called Male Independence before I go (there’s a Female Independence version for when he leaves).

I love how we sleep. Sometimes I awake underneath his shoulder or breathing in his face. Sometimes I am holding his hand. I love that when I asked him if he’d be angry if I burned down the house by accident that he said Yes. I love that I do the grocery shopping and the cooking, and that he comes downstairs saying, “Mmmmmm, that smells amazing-amazing” and makes me say that I’m a food genius.

I love that we respect the feelings that we have and hold the space for all of them, even when it’s not comfortable. Once when I was going through a few weeks of depression, he didn’t try to fix it, figure out what was wrong, or cajole. He put an extra blanket on me and rubbed my head. When he is deep and dark and brooding, I trust that he can hold the tension and that it will pass when it’s supposed to. I scratch his head, rub his shoulders, and make him grits for breakfast. I love that we meditate together and that he sometimes says “Man, I’m messed up” when we’re finished.

I love that when I’m channeling the brusque speaking mannerisms of my grandmother who sometimes cooked squirrel for dinner, he tells me that my delivery is lacking. I love that he corrects the pronunciation of some of my words and lazy speech habits. I love that he knows more than I about American history and politics, despite his having been raised in another country. I love that he loves to try different foods, and that a bottle of booze will go unopened for months at our house while a carton of chocolate milk won’t last a week. 

I love that we’ve declared that if one of us ever wants out of the relationship that the other will help with packing. I love that I can’t imagine the sadness that we’d have were our relationship to end but that the sadness would be tinged with the joy that runs through all of our todays. I love that with our sad-joy we’d keep our hearts open to loving again.