Avoidance Play and the Search for Boundaries

This week's play blog is a cautionary tale about using play to practice avoidance.

As I have mentioned before, this semester has become a personal journey in trying to figure out what it means to be a healthy academic, how to be the scholar I am becoming, and not lose the other parts of myself that are at the core of who I am. In this exploration, I have been contemplating routine, my deepest values, balance, discipline, boundaries, rest, work, and yes, play. This week was about all these things, but also about how I deal with stress, and having to tackle difficult, non-preferred tasks.

Originally, I looked forward to taking time this weekend to center my play around my love of geography and traveling. I had a lot of presentation proposals to work on, so I thought my play could either be a needed break from this work, or a reward for finishing a couple. Instead, I found myself on the internet Saturday night, reading about different movies that had been mentioned in a textbook I had to read for another class. One movie synopsis led to another, and another, and I spent a long time learning about interesting movies from the cinematic past that exemplify different aspects of storytelling. Why did I do this? Well, first of all, I love learning about all manner of things. I can start on one webpage to learn about a particular thing, and end up all over the place, immersing myself in all sorts of different subjects. Secondly, it added some additional background knowledge about the films that were being referred to in my text, and about which I had become curious. But thirdly....thirdly, if I am honest, what became a momentary break from work became a chance to avoid working on something that I perceived as challenging, by doing something fun and interesting to me.

On the one hand, I enjoy writing. On the other hand, I don't like writing. It's the tension that I understand most people for whom writing is part of their work, feel. Sometimes writing is absolutely excruciating, and stressful, and I feel like my brain is about to spontaneously combust. Sometimes, if I can just get started, it's not so bad. But getting started when I think it's going to be difficult, is really hard. And sometimes, it's only a looming deadline that gets me in gear. Even then, I might wait until the last moment. Like when I got two presentation proposals done this weekend, and read a graphic novel tonight instead of working on the last and hardest one. Sigh.

What this avoidance did for my play is allowed me to engage in some fun things (reading for knowledge and pleasure), but always with a little guilt in the background. And, it meant that I never got to the thing I really wanted to do (my geographic play) because I had frittered away the time I had to do that. It also meant that there were no boundaries between time to relax and enjoy, and getting work done. And this is a pattern that I am noticing about myself. I am not good at setting up boundaries. I love that my colleague Kate has a particular time that she has bounded as work time, then gives herself other time that is for her to do the other things that have meaning for her. Since I make no bounded times, I end up working all over the place. I never have time set aside to do other things, so they never get done, and I never really give myself permission to rest and not think about work.

In my quest to seek balance and healthiness in my life, I have begun asking academics I know how they balance work and other aspects of their lives. And I have gotten some good advice. One of the most important pieces that just struck me today is that of boundaries,  that I need to block off times for things I find important, and give myself permission to not think about work, and to just enjoy that sabbatical time. Part of this though, is also to work hard and steadily during work time, and not avoid things that may be difficult for me. Yes, there are times I find work in my play, and play in my work, but there are times when work just feels like work, and I have to soldier through it, and push beyond the anxiety and stress it may cause, or my reluctance to do something so difficult. If I don't make good boundaries here, they will not hold elsewhere, and I will be back to never feeling like I have real times of rest and breaks.

I've learned something this week from using play as avoidance, something that is part of the process I am going through this semester to develop good habits of mind, heart, body and spirit. I am not going to regret my play for this week- it was fun and interesting- but I am going to try to do things differently next week. And this flows into another thing I am learning: perfection is not the standard. For me, it's just doing the best I can, learning and growing to be a better, healthier person. So while I may have blown my boundaries this time (if I can even say I have any), I'm gonna pick them up and try again next week. Then, maybe I'll get to really play, without guilt, safe within positive boundaries.

A Moroccan Culinary Adventure

One of the really good things about this class is that it is pushing me to consider how I am navigating grad school.  An important part of this semester is centering around my personal exploration of how to live a healthy life as a grad student (and future academic), learning to balance all the things that are important to my mental, intellectual, spiritual, physical, and emotional health. Part of this is learning to establish routines that allow space for concentrated times of scholarly work, times for relational and spiritual pursuits, times of rest, and times of joyous playful activity. These categories are by no means exclusive of one another. Like one crazy big Venn diagram, there are things that they have in common, and things that are particular to each. What I am learning is how to negotiate space and time for each, how to embrace the intersections between them, and even how to recognize those intersections. I can’t remember who in our class said it, but one person said something about not necessarily needing to play more, but needing to recognize moments of play in her life, and embrace them. What I am realizing is that I also need to resist creating dichotomies between work, other obligations, and what I choose to define as play.  I too, need to recognize and enjoy moments of play that are found in work and other responsibilities, and through cooking this week, that’s exactly what I did.

 I see foods and cooking as windows into culture, whether that is the narrower definition of a family’s culture, or the wider definitions of a people group, historical time and place, or nation. I totally geek out on how food  and all the things associated with its growth, preparation, and eating can give us a deeper understanding of cultures and history, as well as complex social issues such as nationalism, environmental degradation, and transnational power structures. At home, I have over 100 cookbooks, many of which are focused on historical time periods, and many more focused on the food culture of specific people groups or regions. I love to just sit and read them. I have learned so much about different places and time periods simply through reading well written cookbooks.  In fact, I read them a lot more than I ever cook out of them! Nevertheless, I enjoy cooking, but I do so quite rarely these days. I distinguish cooking from the utilitarian action of throwing something in the microwave or on the stove top to make quickly and simply just to nourish my body. Cooking is so much more- an art, an alchemy where the cook uses his or her creativity, skill and tools to bring disparate ingredients together to make something new that is greater than simply its parts. It’s a chance to connect with one’s own cultural history, or learn another’s, to appreciate the people who have grown or produced the ingredients, and to use one’s aesthetic sense to produce and present a meal that is pleasing to multiple senses. Also, cooking food for others can be an expression of care and regard for them. You can enjoy creating a meal that gives another person great pleasure or comfort, or makes them feel valued because you took the time to make them something special, particularly when they know you don’t have much time to spare.

Chicken tagine with preserved lemon and olives

So Monday, I decided to step back from the speedy stovetop and indulge in more serious culinary pursuits by making a tagine (rather like a rich, thick stew) from Moroccan food culture. A friend of mine had gifted me with the conical shaped cookware from Morocco (also called a tagine), and I have wanted to make her something in it ever since. The thing is, Moroccan food is a complexly spiced cuisine, where it is not uncommon to have 5-10 flavor combinations going on. One spice mix, ras-al-hanout, can have a dozen or more different herbs and spices in it. All that to say, it takes some preparation for the average Western cook like me to make; you generally don’t just have some of those spices in your cupboard. I had already made preserved lemons in advance, and had been collecting the various spices in anticipation of this day, so I only had a couple of ingredients to round up-thank goodness for Sahara Mart! Equipped with the 15+ ingredients, I cut and chopped and mixed and sautéed and simmered until a rich, deeply flavored chicken tagine was ready to be served, along with couscous, and roasted asparagus, a dish I had never made before. The result, thankfully, was a tasty North African inspired meal, accompanied by good conversation and enjoyment of both food and each other’s company.


So, where would this activity go on my crazy big Venn diagram? I enjoyed gathering the ingredients, putting them together and seeing them become something new. I enjoyed taking the time to make a “real” meal, with “real” food, and serving it on “real” dishes. I loved connecting with another culture through their foodways. I loved making food for my friend. Yet there was the utilitarian side of this event, and there was also the cleaning up. In the end, for me, this time cooking was neither defined by work nor play. While it retained its primary purpose to nourish the body, it also transcended it.  And in this messy intersection of pleasurable creativity and utilitarianism, my “playtime” once again pushed against the idea of play and work being wholly separate, and for me, defining something as one or the other. This week, I was able to see play in my work, and work in my play, which is totally ok, and may somehow open up space to enjoy both work and play more. I think I need to stop bounding activities so strictly with the ideas of work ethic mentioned in the discussion on the rhetorics of Frivolity. If I can see some of my work as play, better for me….and maybe better for finding pleasure in other tasks throughout my day. Maybe I’ll even cook more. The only thing is… who’s going to do the dishes?

Imagining Possibilities on a Detour through Fate

Most of us hate detours- the inconvenience, having our perfect plans thwarted, losing complete control of how we get where we are going, and the uncertainty of where that detour takes us. But sometimes, detours aren't bad- sometimes they can take you to places you hadn't planned to go, but which are interesting and where you can learn something new. Sometimes, detours are good. And so it was with this week's play detour. See, I had planned to go sledding on Friday, but by Wednesday, I had a sneaking suspicion it wasn't going to happen. Sure enough, by the week's end, there was little sign that there had ever been snow. Talk about wacky weather! Anyway, Friday night, I was too tired to do anything much, and decided to read a magazine that a friend had lent me. Now I am a person who has a hard time putting down books that I am really into, so the beauty of a magazine is that I can just read one article, or even the whole thing, and it takes a lot less time than a book.

When I read, even in the case of a lot of non-fiction, I enter into the world of that piece of writing. Someone once described it as "falling into the hole" and you "emerge" when you finish. This night, I "fell into the hole" through an article about people of faith who are doing their best to live out their deepest convictions in the decaying and dying city of Detroit. They are determined not to abandon it, nor the people who live there. I was deeply moved by different ways they are working within their communities, struggling to revive what was once a bustling, vibrant urban space, where now there are some 90,000 vacant or abandoned lots and homes. As I read this article, I cried at the devastation, and marveled at the strength of the people who have committed themselves to helping Detroit and their communities. And then I imagined myself there, opening a school, where kids would have the chance to learn through multiple ways, freed from the insidiousness of standardized tests that told them they were all failures; where we could plant urban gardens to grow food we could prepare and eat at our school; where they could apply what they learn in reading, writing and math to rich content learning that incorporates social studies, science, physical education, and the arts. I fell even deeper in the hole as I read another article about people in Guatemala working to help rural children there, in a place where over 70% of the children suffer from chronic malnutrition, and many die or are permanently affected by it. Along with addressing physical needs, a school has been established for those children who have been abandoned, abused, or orphaned, and where wealthy children and children of extreme poverty go to school together, in order to encourage a closing of the social gap. The tuition of the wealthiest helps the school be able to offer its services to the orphans for free. And so I dreamed some more, envisioning a school where parents and donors who were committed to social justice would help children from all socio-economic backgrounds come together at my school to work, learn, play and live together in the heart of Detroit, or another urban center desperately in need of renewal.

This imagining has shades of the rhetoric of Fate, as explained last week, when they shared how some people who play the lottery take pleasure as they playfully imagine what they would do if they won. I play this, even though I don't play the lottery. I think about what I would do if I won some crazy super-Lotto amount, how I would pay some family members' student loans, or buy that one person a car so they don't have to drive the semi-death trap they do, and yes, how I would open a school to give students who basically have no chance, an opportunity. But this play is more than the rhetoric of fate for me. It is also the rhetoric of the imaginary. Imaginative play and imagination is a huge part of who I am, and has been since I was very young. It also intersects with the rhetoric of self, as I use it to imagine the possibilities for my future. Vandenburg says that the essence of being human is that we optimistically project our possibilities into the future: "Play is an instance of projecting one's future and the thrill is derived from exploring possibilities" (p. 187). The kind of play I am describing here is not just about pretend; it's about toying with the possibilities in a real future.

Overlapping and incorporating bits of the rhetorics of fate, imaginary, and self muddies each one, as well as the concept of play overall. I can play with the idea of future realities for hours; more than once I have drawn up basic plans for this imaginary-yet-possible-future school. What does this mean about play and my appropriation of the parts I like from various rhetorics, even as I disregard other parts? What I think it says once again, is that play is deeply complex, ambiguous, and highly individualized. I think that for some of us,  it's in our nature to try to quantify it, when the reality is that it's like water poured from a glass, that flows all over the table and has no easily defined shape.

To finish: I too, hold deep convictions about social justice, about caring for others. In entering into the lives of the people in these articles, I am once again reminded of how important those ideas are to me. There is a verse in the Old Testament of the Bible that says, "He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly^[a] with your God." (Micah 6:8) And in the intersections of play and life and possibility and belief and imagination, this week I pondered how I could do this, whether in Detroit, Michigan or in Mishawaka, Indiana, or Guatemala. As I said, sometimes detours are good.

To Knit or not to Knit? That is the Puzzle

I am one of those people that, when I take a personality test, have a tendency to rank highest on the two most completely opposite things. I have often said that one part of me drives the other part crazy! So, I am a weird mixture of both extrovert and introvert. The last two blog posts have been all about me and collective play, being part of social groups. In class, I shared how I love to host and be part of theme parties.This is the extrovert in me. I enjoy time with people and get energy from being with interesting people I trust, and with whom I can talk, laugh, and play. On the other hand, I am not like most extroverts who hate being alone, who don't like silence or times of stillness. I not only like solitude and stillness, I need them to rest, refill, rejuvenate and restore. I have to have that time to myself just as much as I have to have time with people. I like to read and write creatively, think about and plan travel adventures, do paper crafting, or occasionally be out in nature on my own. This is the introvert in me. My mom used to say I would come home from a semester away at school, go to my bedroom and pretty much stay there for two weeks, alone, then come out re-energized and ready to go again. So, while I would primarily type myself as an extrovert, I think it's important to our understanding of play to avoid a dichotomous view of extroverted and introverted, or of collective players and solitary players, because it seems to me that people are a unique and complex mix of both along a spectrum, not an either/or.

Where I feel like I've particularly lost some of myself as a player is in my solitary play time. When I'm alone, that's when I feel like I need to be getting to work on something, because there's always something to be working on. I rarely read for pleasure any more, and I miss that terribly, but I know that when I start a book, I better have time to read the whole thing, because I'm not likely to put it down....so I just don't start one. : ( With my paper crafting, I need to have the space to leave it out so I can work on it a bit at a time, but I don't have that space at present. By the time I get it all out and put it all away, it's more time than I can afford, and it's too much tidying for me. Yet, after last semester, when I pretty much eliminated all play and most rest, I realized the importance of finding solitary, enjoyable activities which need the minimum amount of space and equipment that I can play at for short amounts of time in order to clear my brain, relax, reduce stress, and rejuvenate. That's when I decided I would learn to knit- or more accurately, "re-learn", as someone had taught me the first time some 25-30 years ago.

I chose knitting because I love fibers, the act of creation, the simplicity of materials and minimal expense to begin. It is also easy to transport, to do in small places or when you only have a few minutes. One of my friends who knits agreed to come over yesterday and teach me the basics to get started. Excitedly, I  went to the fibre arts store downtown to buy needles and yarn. The owner there is fantastic and super helpful. When I explained I was a beginner, she talked with me about which needles would be best for starting, and explained the differences in yarns that would be easiest to work with as a novice. I walked out with a lovely, sleek pair of size 7 bamboo needles, and some warm yellow yarn-my mom's favorite color- with which to practice, as it would show my stitches clearly. My friend came over and we began by looking for the beginning thread in the skein of yarn I had bought.....and that's as far as we got.

See, what happened is that we could NOT find the beginning of the yarn! You usually reach into the center of the skein, and there it is. She reached in....nope. I reached in....nope. After several reachings, the skein was turning into Boston Turnpike on a holiday weekend. We finally found the beginning of the yarn, but by this time, the skein was a tangled mass of yellowness on my living room floor, and we both had meetings to get to. At first, my inner rigid self thought, "Now what?! I didn't play like I planned! What am I going to do? What will I play at instead?" yada, yada, yada. But then, I remembered what my knitting friend said about how winding yarn, and even the process of having to unsnarl a bit could be rather therapeutic. So I decided to go for it....and instead of playing at knitting, I found myself doing a puzzle. As I followed the yellow trail through the twisted yarn pile, it was kinda fun to figure out my way through the maze, and the very tidy and organized part of me took great satisfaction in establishing order out of the chaos, and I actually had  to make myself quit working at the puzzle to finish other things!

So what did I learn from play plans gone awry? First of all, regardless of the fact that I never did get to the knitting part, I spent a lot of time thinking about it, and how it connected to Sutton-Smith's chapter on the rhetoric of self, and how play in our postmodern, consumerist world is about freedom, self-expression, conspicuous playfulness, internal motivation, and individual experience. For us in the modern western world, things like knitting, crocheting, or fishing are now primarily hobbies-forms of play or recreation-with the exception of a small minority of people, such as commercial fishermen, or artisan knitters. The tools of these historical trades have become "toys" for many of us, important to our play, but not to our survival, which we can choose to use as forms of expression of our subjective selves-or not. Many of us have disposable income and disposable "time" to spend on differing pursuits solely to please ourselves, and spend enormous amounts doing so. These become extensions of self, rather than necessities to feed and clothe a community. What was historically considered work and still is in many parts of the world is play for those of us who can afford it. Our wealth allows us access to toys, places and times for our individualistic, consumeristic play that others may not have. As Sutton-Smith says of the Self rhetoric: "Its hegemony is the superiority of those who have access to the kinds of places...where such  experiences are available" (p. 199). And so I wonder if the rhetoric of Self is also primarily connected to those of us who can "afford" it, that is, if it is primarily culturally and historically situated in our postmodern consumerist culture . This idea connects to the Oriard quote in the chapter, which states that there has been a "widely acknowledged shift in America from work-centered culture to one that has increasingly privileged the values of play...the desire to play and transform work into a 'game' has increased dramatically over the past century and a half" (pp.179, 180).

Beyond these more philosophical musings, I also learned to "play with what ya got". I went from a plan to knit to playing with a maze puzzle.  "Working" to unsnarl that yarn once again called into question what is play, how we make something play, if work can become play, if we can play while we work, and who decides what is play- shades of the questions we are asking in class which challenge a binary between work and play.

Finally, as I type this, it occurs to me that that tangled mass of fibre slowly becoming a ball of yarn is a metaphor for what we are doing in class- untangling ideas of play, weaving in and out of snarls in thinking, slowly making some semblance of order out of chaos....until the ball of ideas falls and rolls across the floor of our minds, only to be reconsidered, rewound....containing multiple possibilities for what is eventually "knitted" together. It will be interesting to see what finally emerges from the tangles...

A Scottish Tale of Improv and Haggis

I spent part of last summer in the Highlands of Scotland, teaching in a small rural school, while living with a family whose children were students at the school. It was one of the most fantastic, enriching experiences of my life, and I deeply treasure the memories of my time there.  I have a number of friends who have also taught or studied in Scotland, and they too remember their time there with great fondness, and the same wistfulness I have to go back. So, when I realized that Robbie Burns night was the end of January, I decided it was a perfect time to engage in some merrymaking, and celebrate the beautiful country I now love.  Robbie Burns Night is every January 25, on the birthday of the great Scottish poet, Robert Burns.  Admirers of Burns the world over host Burns suppers, and celebrate his life and poetry, and, by extension, all things Scottish.

I invited several  fellow “Caledoniphiles” over for an informal version of a Burns supper, which has a traditional sequence of activities and rituals that we loosely followed.  We ate the traditional meal of haggis (ordered fresh), neeps (turnips) and tatties (mashed potatoes), after marching the haggis in to bagpipe music, while someone read Burns’ “Ode to a Haggis”, after which we toasted the “Great Chieftain o’ the Puddin’ Race” with uisge beatha raised high. The meal and afterwards was filled with stories of our time in Scotland, Burns’ poetry, toasts to him and “the Laddies”- and laughter. Lots of laughter. Then came cups of tea and Scottish desserts while we listened to more Scottish music, looked at photos, and told more stories. The evening ended in the traditional Burns supper way: singing Auld Lang Syne together.  It was a fabulous evening that did justice to our love for Scotland!

What this night got me thinking about was a comment Dr. McMullen had made after reading this blog last week. It had to do with who we choose to play with, if our partners in play matter in the enjoyment we feel, and if so, how much? I personally think this is a very important part of how we play. For example, if I had invited a bunch of people over who had no connection to Scotland, and who were either incapable of entering into the ritual and improvised action of the evening, or simply chose not to, the evening would have been extremely different, and not nearly as meaningful, fun, or playful as it was. The women who came were as invested as I was in enacting a Burns supper and celebrating Scottishness.  They read the poems and told their stories with expression.  They cheered at the presentation of the haggis. They even improvised when it was time for the speeches we hadn’t planned, and sang loudly and beautifully when it was time for Auld Lang Syne.  In other words, they had “buy in” for this play event, and without it, the evening never would have been more than a “meh” dinner party. I chose these women to play with because we had something in common we cared about, because I knew they were people I could trust to play along, and who wouldn’t be afraid to be expressive, and even sometimes silly with me. It seems to me that when our play centers around something really important to us, something that makes us vulnerable, I think that we choose who we will invite into our “playground” carefully. We are exposed when we play in certain ways-such as being silly or imaginative-and we need to know that we can trust who we share those things with; that they won’t ridicule us when we show parts of our playful selves we won’t show others.

This event also brought to mind some of the things that our speaker taught us about improvisation last week in class: that you have to be spontaneous as you play off other people, that the scene is one of collective creation, and so everyone is equally responsible to make the scene a success, that everyone’s contribution is valuable. The way I see it, in order to engage this way, you have to trust your improv partners. You have to be willing to go out on a limb with them, and believe that you will help each other out to make the scene successful. You have to trust that your “offers” will be accepted, that the answer will be “yes, and….” , and that you in turn will extend and enrich their offers, too.  Robbie Burns Night showed me that certain kinds of play are rather like this sort of improvisational event. Thankfully, I had improv partners willing to go out on that limb with me,  and we all ended the night feeling blessed for having such great friends to play with.  And so, I end with a toast to my Scottish-loving, haggis-eating improvising play mates- cheers!

PS: Some of you reading this are totally wondering what the heck haggis is, and why anyone would write an ode to it. Google haggis, then watch this awesome recitation of the poem. It's in the original Scots language, with the English translation subtitled. C'mon, you know you want to.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kzYaIphbzU

Potluck Power

Leaving class last week, I was rather perturbed after thinking about how play hasn't been much part of my life of late, and how I am struggling with taking the time to play when it isn't an assignment. I consider myself a very playful person, and from what my friends tell me, I would say they also agree. So what's my deal? I believe very strongly in play for all ages, as my second "schema" post urges. After class, I was bothered by the disconnect in what I said in my post, and what I said in class about struggling with play. And then I realized what it was. It isn't that I need permission to play because I think I shouldn't play as an adult, or find it shameful, or ridiculous; rather, I need permission to give up the time that I should be doing all this doctoral program work, in order to play. In other words, it isn't the act of playing I feel bad about. I feel neither guilt nor embarrassment to be a grown up who plays, rather I feel guilty for taking time to play during grad school when I have a list as long as my arm of assignments, proposals, presentations, service work, grading and class prep to do. What I wanna know is, do others do it? How do they find time? Am I just that slow at getting work done, or is it that actually most of us don't play? And if people do, how do they get all their work done?

Then I come back to Dr. Artin Gönçü's visit to class, and his insistence that play is an important necessity for healthy living.  As Dr. Gönçü, a well known scholar of play, said in his awesome lecture the following day, "Play should be an integral part of life...If there is no play in life, then questionably, there is no health in life." And I think I am increasingly feeling that. Last semester was the hardest, most intense semester I have ever had in my academic career, with little time to sleep, let alone play. I spent most of the winter break just trying to recover from that, with a mushy brain and exhausted body that could do little more than sleep and vegetate. And in some ways, I am still working through that crash and burn. What I realize is that somehow, I have to find time to rest, and play. I am beginning to realize more and more that play, at least as I define it, is fundamental to my character and personality.When I try to live without it, I am unbalanced, and an important part of who I am withers. With that, I lose a sense of the joy and beauty of life, and feel even more tired and overwhelmed. While I'm not wholly sure yet how to find the time to incorporate more play, this class couldn't have come along at a better time, because the assignment to play is a great starting point to try to once again find balance in my life. And the visit from Dr. Gönçü this week had an incredible effect on me as well, as I saw how a well-known, respected scholar incorporates play into his own life, and how much he values it. He is an example that it is possible to be a successful academic, and not lose sight of the playfulness of life. I am grateful that we have Dr. McMullen and Dr. Lackey (and Dianna, our soon to be Doctor!) committed to the same here at IU, and that this class is an invitation to consider how to live playfully and healthfully as a scholar.

So, with these ideas in mind after this very thought provoking week, I set out to play some more, this time with other grad students, including Winnie from our play class. Ever since the first semester as a masters student, I have tried to have occasional potlucks with my international women friends, as well as internationally minded Americans. While there's only two of us left from the original crew, the current group is a wonderful mixture of grads and undergrads from 5 different countries who like to eat, have fun, and laugh. We spent the greater part of this afternoon "eating across the world", learning about and from each other, drinking tea, and yes, playing. One fun game we did had to do with passing a small parcel around as we played music. Whoever ended up with the box when the music stopped had to either answer a question, or ask a question of someone else. Through this game, we learned more about each other, and laughed a ton! What was so great was that we got to see each other as more than academics, adding dimension and substance to what we know and appreciate about each other. For me, it was my chance to get to know people at a deeper level, and develop friendships that I hope last a lifetime. I felt enriched, relaxed, and joyous after spending an afternoon with such amazing, intelligent, fun, interesting women. And from this, I was once again reminded of how much I need times like this; times to play and feed my spirit with the things that matter to me. By the time everyone left, I felt more energized, free, and happy than I have been in days....reminding me about what I learned from Dr. Gönçü this week, as well as Dr. McMullen, who wrote on her blog about pursuing well-being. In fact, I was so happy this afternoon that as I began to clean up, I had to take a break to dance to the last song we were listening to while we played the game. And that, my friends, is potluck power, and the power of play. : )

PS: Here's the song....dance along if you like! (I LOVE the part at 2:49 on.....)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CD51uTTJ4s

Not Bedazzled (Goin' Old School)

In all fairness, you should know that despite my last post urging every adult to be free and play, I am not immune to the influence of our culture that says play isn't really for grown ups. When I got the syllabus for my play seminar, and saw that one of the requirements was to play every week, the first thing I did was some whooping and fist pumping. But in true obsessively perfectionistic, precise, academic, grad student style, the next thought was: "What do they mean by that? What counts as play? Is there a list I should look at to pick from?" Sigh. Turns out, I can rest easy. Because no one really exactly knows what play is. Brian Sutton-Smith wrote a seminal book on play. He says in the first sentences of that book: "We all play occasionally, and we all know what playing feels like, but when it comes to making theoretical statements about what play is, we fall into silliness. There is little agreement among us, and much ambiguity." (p.1) Later in the chapter, he gives a list of activities associated with play that range from daydreams to kayaking. Turns out there's a lot of "play" (yeah, pun intended) in the definition, and part of what we're doing in class is exploring just that. So, starting with this post, I'll be sharing with you the variety of ways I have or will incorporate play into my own life, and how that connects with other people's experiences of play, communal play, what I am learning through the coursework and readings, and how it applies to me in my personal as well as academic life.

This week, I decided to start with something I don't do often: video games. Another person in class mentioned them as part of her play memories, with a shout out to Tetris along the way. It's probably been decades since I played it, so I figured, why not? As I shared this idea with my sister, she suggested I also check out another really popular internet game called Bejewelled. No problem; there are free versions of both available online. Getting on the Tetris site and playing a few games was fun, and reduced stress, once I got the hang of it again. There's something rather comforting for scrupulous people like me to fit all those pieces together, and watch the completed lines disappear. Of course I played it at the baby level- when the pieces start coming down at the speed of light, it's too stressful, and the games are too short. : ) It was a good trip back to old school gaming and fond memories of when I played as a teen. But Bejewelled? No. No way. Talk about feeling like a total idiot! I couldn't find the matches most of the time without the game kindly giving me "hints", and even then it took me a minute. Seriously, any 7 year old with decent visual discrimination could have kicked my tail at this game. What I realized is that part of the issue is my eyes; I have pretty severe astigmatism, and all the rows of jewels were too much visual stimuli, too close together. I was ready to stop playing this game pretty quickly, and returned to a few more rounds of soothing Tetris instead. 

My experience with these video games illustrates the importance of the player in understanding what play is all about. As Sutton-Smith says, "The ambiguity of play...owes some of its force to the...diversity of the players...all of whom play somewhat differently." (p. 5) What is one person's play may not be someone else's. And to me, that is the beauty of the ambiguity of play. Play is elastic enough to include my sister relaxing with a game of Bejewelled, while I "old school" it with Tetris. Just don't expect either one of us to join y'all at a Halo party.