One of my fabulous clients sent me this Improv Everywhere video, which made me laugh and wonder if I was going to see a similar event in the Bloor Street Station in the near future. It also got me thinking about play.
As a kid, play was mandatory. “Go play outside,” my parents would say, regardless any season. So on with the sandals or snowsuit and off went the television or away went the book. Hours and hours passed making forts, building castles, exploring and learning and dreaming or, sometimes, causing a bit of trouble.
This video made me realize how much I had been hungering for play. My old soul was tired of creaking and complaining and taking life so seriously. As a result, my activities the past few weeks have unconsciously gravitated towards play:
Writing stories in my bathing suit, like I did when I was a teenager on summer vacation. Composing emails over a cup of coffee on the patio in the wee morning hours. Blocking off time to explore with my niece. Spending a weekend at the cottage off the grid with my siblings. Making decadent tomato chilli jam with my Nanny.
How delicious it is! And you know what? My other, very serious, important work has not been cast aside, but attended to with a lot more space and joy as well.
In the “high five” video there are at least three types of “players”: the creators (Rob and his friends), the “participants” (high five-ees), and “observers” (those craning their necks from the further escalator). I don’t know about you, but I want to be all three at different times: seeing others at play, being a part of someone else’s play, and creating my own playtime for myself and others!
Are you spending enough time playing in your game of Life? How can you find opportunities to play? Will you create your own opportunity, sit back and enjoy others at play, or jump into someone’s event?
It’s that point in the path where, in the distance the road meets the sky. On a road that has not been travelled before by this adventurer, so I can only guess and hope for what is beyond that next summit. Will the landscape open up with shimmery blue lakes and the biggest of skies or will there be construction, the concrete ripped up with dangerous potholes that traffic picks slowly through.
Trusting that years of operating a motor vehicle have prepared me for whatever lies on the other side. That I will be able to stop in time, navigate the roadwork and take a deep breath and enjoy the view. Trusting that those that have travelled this road before have left inukshuks or marking tape that I can decipher and follow when required. Trusting that the pitter patter of my own little heart is leading me where I need to go.
You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting — over and over announcing your place in the family of things.
It has been an incredibly busy summer so far, packed with surprises, adventure, luxury, challenges and growth. We vacationed for two weeks in the Okanagan, and the first few days were spent unwinding in my Zia’s back yard. There was a lot going on for us before leaving, which continued into the vacation, and I am so grateful to have had this safe place to land and balance out.
Being very much back in action and buzzing, I wanted to channel some of that safe place tonight. The hot, lazy sun, the smell of the trees and flowers blooming, the sound of bees and birds adding life to the garden, and me in a nest of my own.
We are currently in vacation-mode, with a couple of timed reality-breaks, playing mostly in the Okanagan Valley. For the last week we have been eating a lot of fresh, locally grown cherries.
As a very precocious seven-year-old, I read Erma Bombeck‘s “If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What am I Doing in the Pits?” It was summer, I was staying with one of my aunts and had run out of books, due to the voracious nature of my reading. I remember squinting my way through that book, not really getting most of it, but being enamoured with it’s humor.
Life seems to be moving at a much more rapid pace lately, with crisis popping up where it is least expected and a sudden hook in the road turning bearings Northwest, and this cherry/pits thing has been turning over in my mind. The dichotomy of the sweet, rich flesh and the hard pebble of pit. And within the pit: promise of future growth given the right conditions.
We are currently dealing with a dear beloved in a time of Crisis. (Please note the capital c.) And during this things-up-in-the-air, Grand Central Station phone ringing, puffy eyes stinging time, two things keep jumping up and waving their hands in my face. The first is guilt. But, I leave guilt for another day. Guilt deserves no more of my time and attention. (Plus, Brene Brown says a lot about guilt beautifully and wonderfully, my words meet no great need today.)
The other thing waving its dirty little paws at me is courage. Courage to stay the path and hold the line. Courage to hold space and not slip into old roles. Courage to speak the truth. Courage to open up to let others help. Courage to face the demons. Courage to really, keep calm and carry on.
Today, I am in awe of the courage shown by my family and grateful for the grace and kindness given which saw me through the day.
I have been thinking a lot about intentionality. That a lot of the time, we zombiefy ourselves: walking around, hands outstretched, groaning about who knows what. Brrrraaaains? A lot of it is being reactive to our environment, the events in our day and the people in our lives.
What if we stopped being the zombie batted around by our environment for a day? What if, when you wake up tomorrow morning, you consciously choose how you will create what you want in your day: choosing joy, service, achievement, efficiency, to observe, or whatever. you. want.
What would you create in your day tomorrow? Imagine what you could build throughout a lifetime.
It is all about music lately. The dancing bit, of course: kitchen dance parties, commuter dance parties, rocking out while painting,and I had an unbelievably wonderful time at Groove Back. But also music itself: finding new artists, revisiting old favourites and seeing what comes out in the alchemy of playlist creation.
The lovely and talented Danette shared her thoughts on Soundtrack and Harmony today over at her blog. Her words nested some where in the back of my brain.
Driving home this evening, “Disarm” by the Smashing Pumpkins came on the radio. Now, I give Billy Corgan a resounding “meh”, but this song anchors solidly amongst my early high school memories. The overwhelming newness of that time, peppered with angst and exhilaration in equal measures, were mine to hold bittersweetly somewhere around the Don Valley Parkway and the 401.
What did that song show up to tell me?
If I wagered a guess: that I am right back there. Immersed in the incredible, exhilarating newness of life and fumbling in the very first days after inception. But that life will uncurl once again to show the answers that I am looking for with this beginner’s mind.
Looking back over the last thirty (some odd) days, this little experiment, which began as a challenge to me in a number of ways (a test of commitment, an exercise in presence, a step out of the shadows), turned into a touchstone. A way for me to identify precious bursts and sparkles of the “me” I am committed to becoming, and also a way to stay on course with that same North star: saying, “Yes, I feel you, wind. You are bitter,” and “I see a hurricane coming from the East, but I need to steer beyond that to get where I am going.”
baby cable cardigan in progress
These 30 days…well almost thirty, I rolled a couple in together at one point…have been about honouring being in the process. Standing, knee deep in whatever filth or gifts or surprise each day brought and considering: “What about today glimmered? What can I take from this day that was beautiful?” I found red dresses, heart beats, courage, and fun.
itty bitty shrub in progress
And oh boy oh girl, did I find beauty. I have earned my beauty-seeking girl guide badge. I have gathered some mega puzzle pieces about what is important to me: like having a zero bullshit tolerance, or that being kind is not the same as underwriting someone’s mediocrity, and that sparkles and dancing are absolutely part of the core curriculum.
Some very big things are on the horizon and I am so very excited. Like, puppy wagging its tail, excited. I feel like for this next step I need a new special beauty seeker hat or maybe an eyepatch…but a sparkly one…pirates? what?
Thank you for step-step-stepping through this journey with me.
Is that ‘Celebration’ by Kool and the Gang, on the bagpipes?
I am delighted to have completed the challenge. There were a lot of pretty frickin’ cool things that happened, beautiful moments and rich learnings over the last 30(ish) days.
I am doing my Snoopy-style happy dance right now, soaking up the richness.
…Challenge wrap up post pending la dance du Snoopy…once I figure out what the wrap up is and means…that’s kind of exciting too!
