Remember Play?
Poetry Friday
Friends,
I was sitting on my patio when a movement caught my eye. It turned out to be two squirrels chasing each other around a tree trunk. One of them ran up the tree and so far out on a tiny branch that it barely held the squirrel without snapping. Suddenly, the squirrel jumped to a branch on another tree and the second squirrel was close to follow. I lost track of them but soon saw them circling around the tree again. Watching them play triggered a memory of a game I played when I was younger called freeze tag.
Remember freeze tag? I have been thinking about how genius that game was because when you were tagged you were frozen (essentially out of play) but you had a second chance to join play again when a team mate “unfroze you” by tagging you back into play. Thinking about this game brought into my awareness of how, in my second half of life, I am getting a second chance to play. Richard Rohr talks about how our lives are divided into two halves in his book “Falling Upward” (1). He says that what we are busy doing in the first half of life is building “our sense of identity, importance, and security” (2). In short, this is the time we build our life and settle down and it’s all about school, work, friends, housing, etc. The second half of life is when “we discover that it is no longer sufficient to find meaning in being successful … We need a deeper source of purpose.”(2) In this second half, Rohr says we usually shift to focus on a deeper meaning in life., namely spirituality or religion.
Making space for play is fundamental. So often we think of play as an afterthought. We might feel we have to “earn” time to play. Life gets busy, for sure, because we can’t deny the responsibilities that surround us. I am reminded lately as I am in my second half of life of just how important play is. If I could, I would add a third stage to Richard Rohr’s two halves. It would be marked by a movement or a shift that happens in the later part of the second half. You see, just about the time you figure out what you are going to do after you retire AND you get on with doing it- along comes the reality of the end of life. I posit that when this acknowledgement becomes closer to reality, there is a possibility of a third stage kicking in. The question becomes “What am I going to do with these last precious years however long or short they may be?” Many of you reading this will not yet be at this place and until you are, it will most likely remain unanswerable. Still others will never dwell on the third stage and will plow right on nonstop in life to the end never giving it a thought— which is perfectly fine. And then, there are others who will consciously ponder and be curious of how to let go of the clutter in life to do what is most meaningful and enjoyable. I am curious about what you will do?
I hope that I am not close to “the end”, however, I am ever increasingly aware that time is going faster than I want it to. Something has definitely shifted where there is more freedom to let go or let things that were important to fall away without regret. There is a more intentional motivation to focus on what brings me pleasure in my last years of life. I would say this is the third stage of my life. The last third. It’s a time of owning and truly claiming who you are in a deep remembering and acknowledgement of your true self and true authenticity with an emphasis on deep personal meaning. The letting go of false selves and playing with abandon.
Play is more important than ever in the third stage. I can’t say what play means or might be for you. I only know that play is not for professional accomplishment or for others praise or for their enjoyment/entertainment but for what it does to brighten and add to my life. It’s something for my own personal delight. What does play mean for you?
Play for your own self discovery!
Jace
Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life (Jossey-Bass: 2011), 8.
Quotes from Daily Meditations. Center for Action and Contemplation. https://cac.org/daily-meditations/two-halves-life-2015-10-12/
Summertime Memories
When I was a kid, Summer was so much fun
Playing and laughing all day in the sun
We would all gather for a game of tag
Or running a race to the finish flag
We would think of ways to try and stay cool
Like going for a swim at the public pool
Drinking tall glasses of cold lemonade
While sitting under a tree in the crisp shade
Riding our bikes up and down the street
Waiting for the ice cream truck for a popsicle treat
Staying up late with my best friend
Hoping that Summer would never end
I'm grown up now but it's just not the same
The loss of innocence is such a shame
It's been a long time but they're still very clear
Those summertime memories that I hold so dear
By Just Maria from https://hellopoetry.com/u714972/Walking Past the Mud Puddle
Today I feel too clean to play,
but oh there was that day
when you and I
walked past the mud puddle,
all slick and ooze, a miresome mess,
and we reached our fingers into the sludge
and smeared the muck
onto each other’s faces—
thick mud, gray mud, slippery
and unctuous mud,
wide swaths of heavy mud
that slashed our cheeks,
bedecked our foreheads, mocked
our love of spotlessness.
Not war paint, but joy paint,
cool liquid earth on our skin.
Besmudged and besmirched,
we baptized each other
in the dirtiest of water,
a murky blessing,
our laughter blossoming
between us in the air,
a many-petalled prayer,
a jubilant lotus
startlingly (how?) so pure.
Rosemerry Wahtola TrommerAnd just for fun, here are the life stages as viewed by a six year old.
Now We Are Six
A.A. Milne
When I was One,
I had just begun.
When I was Two,
I was nearly new.
When I was Three,
I was hardly me.
When I was Four,
I was not much more.
When I was Five,
I was just alive.
But now I am six,
I'm as clever as clever
So I think I'll be six now Forever and ever.
from https://poemanalysis.com/alan-alexander-milne/now-we-are-six/