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 \u201cYou speak their language?\u201d
\n\u201cI did. I\u2019ve forgotten now.\u201d
\nInconceivable! Knowledge so hard won, and then lost. It was so hard for me to wrap my mind around it.
\nOf 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.
\nNow, I get it. Now I know what it\u2019s like to have more knowledge than you can keep.
\nSchool 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.
\nSome children are eager. Some are eager to get to summer vacation.
\nBecause you know what summer means?
\nPLAY.
\nAnd I am discovering that there is another kind of knowledge I\u2019ve forgotten to keep.
\nHow to play.
\nI 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.
\nAnd therefore they had forgotten how to take care of themselves.
\nI understood that story deeply. My daughter was barely two and I understood that I\u2019d been so wrapped around her that my own needs were a distant memory.
\nSHE never wanted to do anything but play.
\nI watched her play. Sometimes I played with her.
\nBut her play was not my play. She\u2019s older now, and her play is still not my play.
\nWhat is my play?
\nDid I forget? Like my missionary friend forgot the language?
\nMaybe. 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.
\nWhat in my life qualifies as that?
\nSleep?
\nThat\u2019s pathetic. It\u2019s time I got more serious about doing what I like.
\nSummer\u2019s coming. Vacation is almost here.
\nHonestly, 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!
\nIt\u2019s going to take some serious research to find that kind of play.
\nStill, it would be worth it.
\nI don\u2019t want to dread summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 \u201cYou speak their language?\u201d \u201cI did. I\u2019ve forgotten now.\u201d Inconceivable! Knowledge so hard won, and … Continue reading