When I was little, there was a lady in my church who had been a missionary to Indonesia.Sometimes she would tell stories, and I asked “You speak their language?”
“I did. I’ve forgotten now.”
Inconceivable! Knowledge so hard won, and then lost. It was so hard for me to wrap my mind around it.
Of course, I had so little knowledge of my own to preserve at that time. The goal then was to acquire it as fast as I could.
Now, I get it. Now I know what it’s like to have more knowledge than you can keep.
School is coming to a close. The teachers in grade school that gift our children with the knowledge they need, the same knowledge every year. Make the shapes of the letters this way. Line the numbers up that way.
Some children are eager. Some are eager to get to summer vacation.
Because you know what summer means?
PLAY.
And I am discovering that there is another kind of knowledge I’ve forgotten to keep.
How to play.
I heard an short story on NPR many years ago, about a married couple who sent their children to the grandparents for a weekend, and went completely unhinged because they had forgotten how to be left alone without someone to take care of.
And therefore they had forgotten how to take care of themselves.
I understood that story deeply. My daughter was barely two and I understood that I’d been so wrapped around her that my own needs were a distant memory.
SHE never wanted to do anything but play.
I watched her play. Sometimes I played with her.
But her play was not my play. She’s older now, and her play is still not my play.
What is my play?
Did I forget? Like my missionary friend forgot the language?
Maybe. I am going to have to study up on play. They experts in the field say play is something that you do that you wish you could keep doing.
What in my life qualifies as that?
Sleep?
That’s pathetic. It’s time I got more serious about doing what I like.
Summer’s coming. Vacation is almost here.
Honestly, what I really want to find is at least a few things that would be play for me AND play for Veronica. That would be a miracle!
It’s going to take some serious research to find that kind of play.
Still, it would be worth it.
I don’t want to dread summer.