It's time to Play!!

My mom gave me more freedom when I was younger than when I was a teenager, believe that!  I remember always being outside playing.  She never had to tell me to go do something or to stop complaining about being bored, I just never was!  I was also an only child which I believe led to my ability to entertain myself so readily, to that I can also thank her.  A neighbor of mine was building a home next door and before the bottom half had been built there were mounds of dirt inside.  He would come by frequently to check on things but told my friends and I that we could ride our bikes on the hills if we wanted.  I’m sure glad he said that because we spent all the time we could riding around pretending to do tricks and making the mounds into shopping centers, restaurants, even houses! 

I had store bought toys but what really fascinated me and kept my attention was being outside and taking in anything I could get to grow an imagination off of.  My friends and I would gloriously make mud hamburgers and soups, we’d find sticks to throw as darts, we’d catch crayfish in the stream behind our houses, and we’d spend all day in the woods pretending to be explorers.

I’m very saddened by how play today has been downgraded to having to be entertained.  Part of the problem is the crime rate and the fear of losing a child to kidnapping, etc.  But another part of it is the gaming systems, the television, toys that require a high price tag because of the brand name they are sporting, but really don’t involve a wide array of play.  I want to and I hope I can still find my imagination somewhere to make better places in our own yard for my daughter to discover things. 

I think play in my life helped me gain confidence and a great fondness for nature.  I gained the confidence by playing with the other children and sharing ideas that they also liked and bounced off ideas from.  I gained confidence because I could jump over plants and I could make the greatest mud pie ever, so I felt good and accomplished.  I wasn’t being tested on how to perfectly hop a mound of dirt on my bike, it was just the fact that I tried and I lived up to my own expectations, not anyone else’s.  That is what made me happy and grow. 

Today I am fascinated about the things I used to do.  Now, I ride a bike pulling my daughter in a child bike trailer and I feel like I might die of heat and never make it over the next hill.  But as a child I could ride my bike for hours and not get tired!  We all lose something along the way called spirit and commitment to ourselves.  Suddenly a company requires our full attention and we must give to pay the light bill.  Too much seriousness too fast I think.   

 “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” Plato

“If animals play, this is because play is useful in the struggle for survival; because play practices and so perfects the skills needed in adult life” Susanna Miller