PLAY-TITUDE 30: THE MANY TOYS OF PLAYFULNESS’S TOYBOX!

What a good month this has been!  All of us have explored our writing in depth.  I have explored my relationship with play and have discovered when my play-titude happens, lightness and joy are the result.  These are toys in my toy box that bring out my play-titude!

 PLAY-TITUDE’S TOYS

 

Play to the beat of the music—sing

Laugh from deep inside your belly

Be spontaneous

Build your own adult playground

Dance with abandon

Dream!

Notice the world

Fashion with beauty and purpose

Get your hands dirty—fun is in the mess

Play with words

Cook without a recipe

Create!

Play alone

Read a book

Go on a date—just with you

Take a long bath

Play with a pet

Renew!

Play with others

Tell a joke…tell a story

Share food with a friend

Play with a child to see wonder

Surround yourself with children and know joy

Touch!

Find a rock and make a friend

Create and celebrate the rituals of life

Be grateful for all

Celebrate the big

Celebrate the small

Celebrate!

Playfulness lives in dreams, in connection, in creation, in renewal and in celebration.  An important meshing exists between playfulness and her sisters.  To embrace one, I am at the same time creating space for the other.   As I dream, connect, create, renew and celebrate a playful response is born.   

I have known playfulness and each of her sisters this month.  Having an attitude open to exploring playfulness has allowed me to find the gold.  For this I am grateful.   

PLAY-TITUDE #30:   CHOOSE PLAY-TITUDE!

Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for dedicating space and time for writers and teachers of writing to come together to share ideas, practice and life experience.

PLAY-TITUDE 29: SOMETIMES PLAYING JUST ISN’T FUN! I DON’T WANT TO PLAY TODAY, MOTHER NATURE!

I know when to play and I know when enough is enough.  And today I say to Mother Nature—STOP PLAYING WITH ME.  Send this winter weather home.  Yesterday brought blizzard weather to upstate NY.  Enough is enough.  I am through with playing with you.  You are calling me out to play and I am staying inside, waiting for my warmer friend to call me out to play.  In the meantime…a poem that I wrote last year and want to resurrect to celebrate spring…bound to happen soon!

MARCH  TUG-o-WAR

 

 It’s tug-o-war time once again—

Seasons’ in a tiff.

Winter wants to have its way

Giving Spring mischief.

Yesterday was balmy—

Warm wind filled the air.

Today it’s cold and gray outside

With Winter’s lasting dare.

Back and forth they tug the rope

Each struggling to win

One day flowers a bloomin’

Next day snow begins.

“I will win this tug-o-war!”

Winter loudly gloats.

Spring keeps pulling, shouting back,

“Put away those coats!”

The war goes on and days do pass

With Winter finally tired.

So spring puts up a mighty push

To get the win desired.

The world’s awash in green and warm

As new birth fully sprouts

Spring is here in all its force

And Winter is shut out.

“Don’t be cocky, Springtime,”

Winter weakly drawls.

I’ll be back to win this war

When I can sprawl with Fall.

 Spring Wins!

PLAY-TITUDE #29:   CELEBRATE SPRING—EVEN WHEN WINTER WON’T LET GO!

Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for dedicating space and time for writers and teachers of writing to come together to share ideas, practice and life experience.

PLAY-TITUDE 28: FAMILY NIGHT FUN BUILDS A LIFETIME OF PLAYFULNESS!

When my children were little we used to have family night every Friday night.  There were four of us and once a month one of us got to choose the night’s activities.  We would go to movies or have game nights or go to unlimited pizza joints or build legos—all depending on who was planning the night.  On Thursday night the person planning would announce their choice and on Friday all of us would join in on the fun.  It was a lovely tradition that lasted for a number of years until teen-age Friday night activities eventually took over.

One of my favorite of our Friday night evenings would be when we had game night.  Scrabble, Monopoly, Catch Phrase, Trivial Pursuit, Aggravation and more.  Those evenings of laughter around games are some of my most fond memories of raising my children.  We would make popcorn and gather at the big table in the family room.  We would light a fire in the fireplace and open the coffee table so that we could all sit comfortably around the perimeter and we would get out a game to play.  The play would be sometimes aggressive, sometimes a noisy ruckus, sometimes silly and always lots of fun.  It is funny to think of the competitive brawls we would get into over a marble race as we played Aggravation.  Or the way my daughter’s and my minds would be working in tandem as we would play Pictionary—our quick drawings easily guessed by the other—we played as if we were reading each other’s minds.

Many things have changed since those nights of long ago.  Both of my children are making their way into an adult world.  Those nights are a memory but a memory that is part of the foundation of our history.  We have a history of play.  And that history is available to me—to each of us whenever we want to call upon it.   Tonight my daughter is having her bachelorette party to celebrate her soon-to-be nuptials.  (I can’t believe the wedding is only four weeks away!)  They are in Canada where she is having a game night of sorts with her friends and soon to be bridesmaids.  They will probably get a little wild and have great fun.  

This I know…life changes and life stays the same.  We grow up and out of family traditions.  Yet, what we built from those fun experiences is a constant inside of us.  Making fun memories with our children is golden and the foundation of those experiences is built and lasts with us through life’s changes.  Birth, childhood, teenage years, young adulthood and eventually a family of her own.  Who knows…maybe sometime in the not-to-distant future my daughter will be having a family night with her own family.  The history that is a part of her family of origin taking on a new twist...with a family of her own.   And just maybe—on occasion they will invite me over to join in the family night fun. 

PLAY-TITUDE #28:   LIFE CHANGES BUT THOSE TRADITIONS OF FUN WE BUILD ARE FOREVER!

Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for dedicating space and time for writers and teachers of writing to come together to share ideas, practice and life experience.