The importance of playtime

One day, in the distant future, my son won't forgive me for this.  

This week, as I await the gritty and real conclusion of Breaking Bad, I'm looking for shiny and interesting things.  I've seen two that were particularly sweet and dreamy. The first was Ricky Gervais's blog entry on creativity and the second, Jimmy Fallon's second lip sync dance off. Both highlight, for me, the importance of play.

Yes. Play. Gervais discusses it outright in his piece and Fallon makes play his vocation. But play is essential to who they are and what they do - and in many ways, essential to who we all are.  It can make what we do feel so much more inspiring and fulfilling.

Once when my daughter was young she was playing with a friend. Her friend, breathless, ran out to report in a bit of a tattle-tale tone, "Monkeymoo is using her imagination! She says the bed is a boat but it's not a boat, it's a bed." Her mom giggled, embarassed.  But this little gal was taken aback by an essential skill in our place:  You have to play to live here.

Or, rather, you have to play to live.

Everyone in this house plays - while we all spend a fair amount (too much, I'd wager) of time with our heads buried in screens, we also run around in the backyard or take action figures on crazy adventures.  Even Honeybadger plays - mostly mommy/baby themed dramatic numbers that involve someone being lost.  But we also play with music and words. We teach the kids to imagine different endings to movies and tv shows - to envision cross-overs with our favorite superheroes.  We dress up for the Zombie crawl and wear costumes to Denver Comic Con.

Because you have to play to live.

I struggle every year with trying to get my Composition students to recognize that play is an essential skill in writing.  I don't teach them creative writing - I teach them formal academic writing, but we still play. We play with words.  We play with sentence structures - take what's up front and put it in the back and see how it works.  Try fragments!  We play with ideas and writing construction - breaking rules (don't state the thesis outright!  Wait until the END!) along the way. To be a successful writer, even a successful formal writer, requires a sort of play. I work hard throughout the semester to get them to shrug off the seriousness, the big bold THIS IS WRITING CLASS and try to get them to embrace a little writing class, we are!  Maybe it works and inspires them maybe they think me insane. I'm not sure.

But this week, I challenge you to read Gervais's column and watch Fallon's video and find some way to bring play into your life.