Thoughts on Playing
A dragon lives forever but not so little boys
Painted wings and giants' rings make way for other toys.
One grey night it happened, Jackie Paper came no more
And Puff that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar
L Lipton & P Yarrow
With clarity I can recall the moment I realised I had forgotten how to play. The date and my exact age I don’t know, that wasn’t important. The important thing was a moment of awareness in which I knew my approach to life had changed and there was no going back. I was eleven or twelve, towards the end of primary school, possibly even in high school already, so
I assume my ability to play in the way a child plays had been fading slowly for the last few years, just so slowly I hadn’t really noticed. Perhaps it was in an effort to hold on to it that Laura and I sat down on my bedroom floor and set out in front of us our combined collection of 14 Pollypockets[1]. With ritualistic solemnity we laid out our miniature world that stretched from a farm in the west, through to a city shopping strip, a Chinese style garden, and finally to the beach in the east (I realise now that there, on my bedroom floor and encased in candy pink and purple plastic, we had created a replica NSW). With directorial precision we placed our characters into the scene, carefully reminding ourselves of where each of those little plastic figurines were at in their own life story, sitting them at tables with their parents or perhaps in the school room, or driving a tractor through the farm. I’m fairly certain it took over an hour. And then we sat there and looked at the little world before us. Then we looked at each other. Then one of us suggested we pack it all away again, because we no longer knew what to do with them. And that’s when I knew that a phase of my life was gone.
I had been a girl who had the ability to name herself Jo Katar and write a ridiculous story called Heigh Ho I like the Sea, to hang out with a pair of invisible lasses named Fordy and Tsinka, to invent a back story for every single doll she owned, to be known as Betty or Sarah dependant on what shoes she wore. Suddenly those skills became redundant, shameful even.
The thing that I find curious now is that I see great value in being able to play the way children do and sometimes I want it back. In assigning a type of play to a phase of life, have I limited my ability to have fun now? Matthew and a group of his friends play dungeon and dragons, and as much as I realise I should probably be horrified by such a nerdy activity, I find myself insanely jealous because I can not even begin to imagine how, as an adult, I would go about playing an imagination game. Sure, I can play scrabble, and at a push I might play chess or monopoly, or possibly even
Now, as someone who works in theatre, has performed in community theatre and graduated from a degree with a creative writing major, I obviously don’t, or at least shouldn’t, have a problem with using my imagination, developing a character or becoming involved in a story. I don’t even have a problem with these things being fun, or a type of playing. I realise that for some people, say professional performers, play and work are very similar things. Maybe I’ve relegated creative and imaginative play to certain arenas, in places where it is also work and is therefore an acceptable thing. For play to lead to an obvious end result which is somehow useful, if only as entertainment for others then that is fine. To play simply to play, to have fun seems strange and is something I think I turned away from.
Its ok, for me, as an adult person to engage in activities reminiscent of childhood play, as long as it is for the grown up purpose of productivity rather than the childhood purpose of having fun. I can be creative and imaginative as long as I’m also working and seeing a production move from rehearsal to performance or a story move from notes on a page to a re-worked draft, as long as I’m expanding my mind by reading Jane Austen or George Eliot or watching a play or listening to Mozart. But sitting down and playing, for the sake of playing, for the sake of having fun seems foreign to me, and that makes me a bit sad. I worry that in my haste to be a grown up, did I throw out my ability to have fun as well as my ability to play? Is this why I find it so hard to have a night off and do nothing and actually enjoy it? Is this why the concept of going on a holiday reduces me to a state of panic, stress and tears? How can I enjoy a week gone by where I am not somehow contributed, been productive, made money, but had fun and been imaginative and creative for no reason other than it is enjoyable.
Why was I in such a rush to distance myself from childhood activities? I think I assumed that if I set aside my dolls and got on with this growing up business I would become a real person. A valid person. I think of Jackie Paper and his childhood companion Puff, The Magic Dragon. When Jackie Paper grows up it is Puff who feels the sadness. It is Puff who hangs his head, and slinks into his cave, with his green scales falling like rain. Yet, in my case it is me who is now mourning the loss of my ability to play, to invent and imagine. I had always assumed that we should believe Jackie went off and had a great time. But perhaps he didn’t. Perhaps he missed his adventures on the high seas just as much as Puff did.
I wonder how many sullen, sleepy dragons all us adults have hidden in the caves of our minds and hearts that could do with a good waking up. I wonder how many I have, and who they all are, and if I found them and woke them, would I actually unleash a whole stack of creative potential, energy and joy. Its possibly I may even relearn how to play and embrace opportunities to have fun.
[1]Laura, I’m still really sorry that I broke your Pollypocket clock tower. I recognise that I should not have run down the hall with it in my outstretched hands, giving it the opportunity to test out the wings it didn’t have.
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