Amid the Falling Snow

Sometimes you have to make the best out of a less than ideal situation. That was the case today, when instead of flowers pushing their way out of the ground in the first rite of Spring, a winter front muscled its way across the plains and dumped snow on Btown late this afternoon. Sigh. Yes. This late in March. Instead of lamenting our frigid fate, I decided to make the event something playful. I got a new camera for Christmas, so this gave me a chance to try out the video feature, as well as take some still photos of the bare branched trees, coated in winter white. With no pressure to hurry and be done, I was able to try different settings and compositions to capture the event, and learn some of the features of my camera. After playing with my new tool/toy for awhile, it was time to turn to more quiet and contemplative play.

Today was the kind of snowstorm that has the large, fat flakes which fall gently, silently, with little or no wind. This is the kind I love, the kind that relaxes me, and makes me want to be still and in the moment. I had to celebrate this, before the moment to enjoy its beauty was gone. So, I put the kettle on, and made a fire in my woodburning fireplace. I found an Enya CD and turned it on. Once the fire was crackling, and my mint tea poured, I sat by the fire, and watched nature's show, accompanied by music that made it even more lovely. And in those moments, I was able to still, to enjoy instead of dislike the late March snow, and fill my mind and spirit with some warmth and peace.

My snow time today exemplified the restorative nature of play, and taught me something new about being deliberate and creative about how to play when the unexpected occurs. Many times we have no control over what happens in our lives. The only thing we can control is how we react to what is happening. And it's in those moments that play can be a powerful ally to help us navigate the difficulties or unexpected circumstances in our lives. While for me it was only unwelcome snow in March, play can be restorative and cathartic for people dealing with graver, more challenging issues, like terminally ill people fulfilling playful dreams on bucket lists, or Dr. Patch Adams using humor and play to encourage patients and orphans. Play is us thumbing our nose in defiance of the ugly of the world, indeed, trying to find beauty and joy and fun within the mess. Play, as Stuart Brown suggests, may truly be critical to our survival and well-being. If so, play on.
                                                                
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A postscript: I made a short video on my camera to try to share a sense of my experience today, but for some reason, it won't upload. So, instead, here are a few more photos, and a link to the main Enya song I was listening to: Amid the Falling Snow.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wacyMhxIOd0

See Eclectica Play

It was Spring Break this past week, though I use the word "break" rather loosely. For me, it meant I got to go home to northern Indiana and do research at my old school, try to squeeze in some other work, too. But I count my blessings: at least I didn't have to try to go and teach rather rowdy third graders every day while also attending my own classes and teaching "the older kids" (my simplified description to the third graders of my undergrad preservice teachers). And, it felt good to be in a classroom with the little guys again, teaching about things I care about, and they seem to enjoy learning about. I also did find time this week to visit with a number of friends and relatives I treasure, and do some catching up. In two particular circumstances, I also managed to incorporate some play as well.

But before I tell you about that, let me introduce you to Eclectica. In class we were asked to write a resume for who we would want to be as a fully embodied player without any restraints put on that definition. Eclectica is the result. She is who I would want to be if I could play as I wish, and if I could just score a few superpowers. For example, she can time bend with her magic pocket watch so that she has more time and can travel quickly, either into the past or in the present so that she can immerse herself in the cultures of the world, and in history. She is able to fit comfortably in other cultures, adding and blending aspects of them within herself without losing her core identity, and learning how to speak languages, sing, play instruments and dance in a short amount of time if she is mentored by someone in the culture. Other powers include reading at the speed of light, being fit with insta-health regeneration after 7 or more hours of sleep, and facing the world with rational fearlessness- unafraid to be herself and take reasonable risks. All of these things allow her to enjoy the things she loves to do, such as learning about culture, history, anthropology and geography by doing and experiencing; dancing, singing, playing instruments in multiple genres; reading and writing for the fun of it; scrapbooking; being active out in natural splendour, and helping people feel valued while encouraging them to live joy-filled and playful lives. See, Eclectica is all that I wish I could be when it comes to being a playful person. She is the integration of multiple rhetorics of play, and embodies elements of Stuart Brown's ideas on play, as well as Diane Ackerman's. Unfortunately, some of these things really would take magic and superpowers to achieve, but others just take time, energy, money, and courage, things that I am often short of. Still, I hold fast to the idea that in some ways I contain elements of  my alter ego super-player. This class is beginning to revive some of those playful elements in me again.

Eclectica takes a whiff of the still warm Hot Cross Buns

Another part of the assignment was to make a figure of our super embodied player to accompany us on our Spring Break, and to be incorporated into our play for the week. I think the idea of Flat Stanleys, travel gnomes, and other figures that travel around and show up in people's pictures are a lot of fun to see, but I felt a little foolish myself in bringing her out. It just goes to show that societal assumptions and pressures about adulthood press in on us even when we disagree with them and want to resist. Fortunately, I was with wonderful family and friends who didn't look askance or question why a doctoral student was playing with a big cardboard figure as an assignment for class, and she engendered some interesting conversations along the way. The first play event was at my aunt's and uncle's house. They have a tradition of having my sister and friends of ours who are like sisters over on the weekend to eat and chat and hang out together. Whenever I am home, I join them if possible. My aunt is a fabulous baker, and all the men in the family cook as well, so there is never a shortage of yumminess to share when we go over. This weekend was special, as my aunt had baked hot cross buns for the Easter season, and my uncle, who is from Ireland, had made corned beef, potatoes and cabbage for St. Patrick's Day, which was coming up. We spent hours talking, and for the first time I got to hear the amazing story of how he had found his birth family after 50+ years of separation. The evening was a combination of things I love: celebration, storytelling, good food, connecting with people important to me, and learning about other cultures through all these things.

My scrapbook expert friend helps Eclectica use the
tape runner tool

The second play event was one I have been looking forward to for a long time, and which I have missed ever since I began grad school: scrapbooking. A group of close friends got together for the evening, and over pizza, dessert and decadent brewed chocolate drinks, took some time to catch up with each other. Then I was able to dive into the hobby I have all but abandoned because of the lack of time. It took me some time to look through the materials I had and try to remember how I used to organize myself to begin to create. Once I got the hang of it again, I loved pulling out the beautiful papers I used to enjoy looking at, planning graphically pleasing pages, and reminiscing over old photos from my undergrad years. Who would have thought cutting paper, using the rolling adhesive tool and organizing photos in a sequence could bring such warm memories and pleasure? Eclectica was there again.... and in typing this, I realize the figure I made of her was my love of papercrafting embodied in a cardboard doll! She herself was scrapbooked, so it was fun to think about how my love of this hobby even bled over into her creation.

So what to make of my time playing with Eclectica? First of all, I recognize my need to develop rational fearlessness, to not be afraid to be myself, nor be embarrassed of playing how I want to play, even if other adults think it's wierd. Secondly, my play this week affirmed some of the things I value as a player, and that I need to continue to work to incorporate these things into my life, even as a busy grad student. While I am not too bad at getting together with people I love and care about, and taking opportunities to experience culture, I have sorely neglected my inner scrapbooker. Some weeks ago, thanks to this class, I decided that I need to somehow make space in my bedroom to put up a table where I can leave my scrapbooking out. One of the reasons I don't scrapbook is because the amount of time it takes to pull things out, and then to clean up afterwards sucks up most of the time I would have to work on things. If I have a dedicated space for scrapbooking, I am more likely to sit down and work on things for an hour or two, because I don't have to factor in unpacking and clean up. The joy and relaxation I felt this weekend scrapbooking once more has made me even more determined to figure out how to make space in my apartment to reintegrate this hobby in my life. In fact, I even pulled a few scrapbooking things out of the storage closet up here to take back to Btown so I can get going again. And I have chosen to work on a small project, so that I can also feel a sense of accomplishment in getting something completed after such a long hiatus.

Who would have thought playing with a cardboard doll could engender such reflection and action?

 

In a Narrative Twist, Plork Enters

So as some of you recall from my last post, I both hate and like writing. This week, I decided to go to the side of writing that I like: creative writing. I have been writing creatively since I was a little girl. My mother has a notebook full of stories I wrote when I was around 8 years old, stories that seem to have grown out of my love of reading, and my huge imagination...a young girl escaping Pompeii just as the volcano was erupting...kids solving mysteries, and so on. I have written off and on ever since. I was in a writing group when I lived in San Antonio, but hadn't been in one ever since moving to Indiana. Imagine my surprise and pleasure when I found a writing group to join here in Bloomington! Called Tea and Ink, we meet every other week during the semester to do writing exercises, talk about writing, and sometimes workshop each other's work. We take turns hosting, and usually the host directs the meeting for that week, which means that the topics and kinds of activities are wildly varied- a terrific way to stretch your creativity and imagination. It's a pretty close knit group, and like our play class it's a safe space for people to express themselves and share their writing, which can be a deeply personal activity. This week was an extended writing session: everyone brought a piece or an idea they wanted to work on for two extended periods of writing, with a break in between. Then at the end we talked about what we were working on, and what we may have realized during the course of our writing that day. Our next meeting will give everyone the opportunity to pair up and workshop with another person on this week's writing, or anything else they want some feedback on.

I love my time at Tea and Ink. It really is just about the only time that I creatively write any more, so it's all the more important, because it's time I have specifically blocked out for a creative pursuit. The majority of my writing time is taken up with academic writing, which is a whole other matter for me. I don't want my writerly world to narrow solely to the discourse, vocabulary, and functionality of scholarly writing, and this group helps me remember there's more to the written word than journal articles, papers for class, presentation proposals, and abstracts. Both have places in my life, but very different sorts of places. For me, this very same activity-writing- in different situations can be work, or it can be play. And this led me to some of the ideas I have been reading in my book club book, Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul. The author, Stuart Brown, describes a number of properties of play, including:

• voluntariness, not obligatory nor required by duty;
• inherent attraction, because it is fun, exciting, and makes you feel good;
• providing freedom from time; that is, losing a sense of the passage of time;
• continuation desire, wanting to keep doing it, because of the pleasure of the experience;
• a sense of flow (ala Csikszentmihalyi), being fully in the moment (pp. 17,18).

All of these were present in my creative writing time this week; I could not believe how fast the time went in each writing period, and when I got home, I had to sit down and write some more, before I felt like I had found a good "stopping place" for now. This is in contrast to scholarly writing, in which I can honestly say I feel none of the above. While I think it is an important and valuable part of my life, it is definitely work for me. Then there is this blog, something that sits astride work and play: "plork", maybe? Yet another example of how ambiguous the ideas of work and play can be!

Playing with writing this weekend was also part of another realization I've recently made about myself: I am a highly narrative driven person. What I mean by this is that it is very much in my nature to take different ideas, activities, and concepts, and bring them together creatively to communicate and experience them in a story structure. Stuart Brown says that you can learn a great deal about yourself by looking back at your own play history, and I see narrative structure all over it, from the plays I used to put together with my brother and sister, to the wild stories my friends and I created in Barbie play, to our dress up and running around imaginative play, to the adult versions of  theme parties, creating interactive units of study, certain kinds of presentations, and scrapbooking. I realize that this love of and connection to narrative story structure is part of the reason I like creating curriculum, and even sometimes presentations. It allows me to use my creativity to pull together ideas to teach and communicate them to others in hopefully engaging ways. Even as I type this, I am just now realizing that this is the "plork" part of my profession that can provide freedom from time, continuation desire, and a sense of flow for me. Brown encourages each one of us to mine our play pasts to find the things we loved during play, and carry those into our professional lives as adults. What I've found is story....an unexpected plot twist in this narrative of play, work, and our new protagonist, plork.