This blog was started as a means of celebrating a sense of “play,” both in work and in life. Lately that element has gone sorely missing in my life.
Amidst stresses personal and professional, playfulness is often the first thing to be jettisoned; it’s as if the dour responsibilities of adulthood stand diametrically opposed to smiling whimsy of play. Why is this? Why do we dump fun things when the going gets tough? Maybe we have to give ourselves permission to have fun, without any guilt “oh-I-should-really-be-doing…” Maybe we have to give up our inherent need to please everyone around us. Maybe we have to throw open the door to a tiny bit of fun chaos every now and again.
An old friend visited recently, which afforded the opportunity of pulling out some old toys we used to share, enjoy, and occasionally war over as kids. In that magical moment, all the trappings of our dour adult lives got put aside: the complicated jobs, the painful relationships, the pressing money issues, the maybe-maybe-not plans for tomorrow, the droning ugly siren’s call of Monday morning. Silliness and imagination took precedence; neural pathways of joy were blasted open in a joyous expression of carefree loveliness. Nothing else mattered but living in the moment of our shared creativity. It wasn’t a drunken series of incidents, either; amidst bites of tomatoey veal and sips of red wine, there erupted much laughter, as we posed superheroes and bits of every day ephemera in a sort of cacophony of cartoon surrealism. Our old worried selves became carefree kids once more.
I’m thinking about those moments of play a lot right now as I face a particularly stressful series of situations yawning, with ugly, hooked fangs, before me this coming week. Something about the joy of that experience feels light, instructive -redemptive, even -and beautifully pristine, as if I can always return to the warm, nurturing arms of play. Those arms are never really as far away as I’d imagine. I don’t have to wait for the proverbial “tinkle trunk” to access that joyousness: it’s already there. Just takes a bit of reminding, a bit of time away from the computer, thinking everything has to be done right away, this very instant. Allowing myself permission to laugh freely at silly things is good. Giving myself permission to smile is grand. Discovering I had the keys to the kingdom all along is a shock. There’s a sort of divinity at work I’d never imagined.
A few superheroes still sit on the kitchen table. Far from being false idols, they’re talismans, reminders, fortifiers. Cheerleaders for play. Adulthood doesn’t have to be all misery; sometimes it’s good to allow play in to brighten up the room, the week, the grey pallor of grown-up-hood. I’m glad I did. We plan, God laughs. Maybe it’s time I started laughing more.