The Play(ing) is the Thing.

We do not quit playing because we grow old; we grow old because we quit playing.
Oliver Wendell Holmes


Down down baby down down the rollercoaster shimmy shimmy coco pops shimmy shimmy .... Thats all I can remember of the chant I sang daily while clapping my hands in intricate patterns with a friend, sister, or cousin. More of the Crocodilla chant remains in my memory, and maybe some Miss Mary Mac. But I don't recall any of the rules of hopscotch, and I can't remember the last time I laid eyes on a jumprope or hula hoop. Some say these are the trappings of the children and the childish, and are right to be left behind. I disagree. Such are the harborors and hearteners of imagination, and the lack of inhibition to enjoy it freely. It was playing, and when you're little, playing is unlimited supply of happiness carried in your pocket for instant access.

I wonder when I forgot to how to play. When the occupation of my imagination shifted from the elaborate melodramas of Barbie and Ken to poetry and blog posts? When did my bicycle cease being a Kentucky Derby winner and become a clothes rack? When did I trade doll clothes for computer screens? When did the matchbox cars in my palms get replaced by mice? Why are the toys which abound in my apartment silent and still? What happened to me? What happened to all of us?

When I was a kid, playing Barbies was one of my favorite things to do. I never bothered changing her clothes or brushing her hair, and none of my dolls had their shoes anymore. But hours a day, my Barbies, Skippers and Kens were actors in my little mind's grotesque theatre. Skipper was often left to fend for her little brother after Barbie launched herself off the top the Dream House and Step-dad Ken descended into alcoholism. When I figured out I could replace the dolls’ heads after I had ripped them off, bloody revolutions took place in my playroom and the monarchy of the tyranical Queen Barbie was overthrown again and again. Many dolls met their horible demise under the wheels of that hot pink remote control car. Sometimes, Barbie took Little Sister Skipper to the movies, and bought her popcorn.


However they were engaged, my little actors could go on all day. Living, and dying for love or greed, beating the wolves away from the door, or being maimed or eaten by them, and burying Skipper’s dog in the back yard again and again. An endless parade of scenes from the imagination of a young child who probably needed some therapy. My teddy bear, Theodore Edward Behr, became my son and I taught him to dance, cradled him in my arms as we slept behind dumpsters in the rain, and sent him off to his grandmother's to die from everything from chicken pox to AIDS. Yes, I am sure I needed therapy. But as twisted and aberrant as it may have been, it was play. It was imagination. It was escape into a world of my creating that played by my rules. And it was fun.

Along the way our dolls were replaced by dollars. As we went from training wheels to training bras our drive and desire to play relpaced by our desire to drive. Why did it slip away? Was it when the forth grade girls who swung from the monkey bars became the fifth grade girls who climed to sit on top of them and talk about boys? Was that the beginning of the end? Was it because the sixth grade girls and boys had no more recess time at all? Was it because our cutesy cartoon backpacks couldn't carry the burdens of a nineth graders homework, or because high school brings more burdens than books alone? All I know is, by graduation playing anything but hooky was gone for good.

As a pre-school teacher, I watched my four-year-olds engage in elaborate stories of home and harth in the dramatic play center. Laughing uproariously as they dressed in ridiculous ensembles of donated clothes, and found fanciful occupations for mundane items, like tiny dented pans and plastic carrots. I watched them from behind glass. Their's was a land to which I had no passport.

Across the room at the Leggo table, odd assemblage of squares and rectangles were cars for superheros, or superheros themselves. Evil monsters who shot lasers out of their armpits battled T-rex dinosaurs that could fly and devour Monster trucks in one bite. At least that's what their makers told me. All I could see was bright colored blocks, stuck together seemingly at random. I walked the room an outsider. I observed their play, monitored their safety and waited for the teacher who would be my relief, because center time was just so boring. One can only watch birds at a feeder for so long, knowing they themselves have forgotten how to fly.

Wanting so badly to reconnect with my floor sitting, doll playing, imagination of past, I conducted an experiment today. I took out the box of toys I keep for the children I babysit, and tried to play with them. I dumped them on the floor and let my imagination go, hoping I could tap into that childhood bank of playtime memories with ease. The most I could come up with was a Beanie Babies Basset Hound protecting a stuffed chicken from a hungry alligator puppet. This lasted approximately fourteen seconds. I was better with the matchbox cars, racing and crashing into each other, and I made a half hearted Potato Head Picasso. I turned circles and waved my arm to make Buzz Lightyear soar through the galaxy, and bounced him and Woody up and down, having a conversation to which i could put no words. My attempts at play were empty. Forced and void of imagination. Going through motions. All a shallow hull of what used to be purest joy that filled my days and my young spirit. Frustrated, I gave up on playtime, and turned to the computer. At the very least I could enjoy a few rounds of Candy Crush Saga, or shoot a few zombies. That's playing, right? Kind of? Maybe? That's when I remembered the old copy of The Sims I came accross when clearing out some boxes a few weeks ago. I loaded it up and created a few characters. I turned on god-mode, the setting that removes the characters' free will and makes their every move up to you, and whatever your imagination deems. They aren't Barbie Dolls exactly, but I'm sure I can think of some kind of dramtics for them to portray. Maybe I will even let them live.