How is that possible?
Parents have lots of "important" things to occupy their attention: bills, emails, jobs, legal gobbledy-gook, self-improvement, service in the church . . . name your poison. Because of that, when those little voices switch into "pretend" gear, it's easy to tune them out and divert your energy to other things. An experienced mom can subconsciously distinguish between play fighting and real wars, ignoring the former and interrupting the latter. "Happy" requires no intervention.
Another reason we can miss the actual play even when it swirls around us is that we perceive it as an interruption rather than the raison d'être. Take this very moment, for instance.
It is nap time in the Castrataro residence. We have had a delightfully laid-back day with a minimum of squabbling and an overwhelming sense of peace and tranquility. Truly a golden day. After reading two Curious George stories to the little ones, I tuck them in for the obligatory rest. I have a plan to toss a load of laundry in the washer and write an article.
Enter the voices.
Through my monitor, I hear a narrator and about six characters enacting some kind of drama. The yammering is such that an article will not be easy to write. Task-oriented Mom would put the kibosh to the folderol in the interest of generating an income. Today's Mom sits and listens (and exchanges an article for a blog . . . plenty of time to work tonight!).
I hear them discussing various characters and their backstories. I am transported. I see my sister and my brother and me sitting on a floor with two Ken dolls, eight Barbies (one of whom had a chewed foot and another with an after-factory crew cut), ten plastic horses, and a village built out of Lincoln Logs. We staged Westerns with kidnappings and daring rescues. We enacted romances that would put Harlequin to shame. We created domestic dramas modeled after our daily lives.
I can't begin to fathom how many hours we spent like that, creating our own worlds and loving every minute of it.
I do remember that I played with my Barbies and horses long after most of my peers had abandoned them. Was it because I had a younger sister? Was it because we moved my freshman year of high school and somehow the role playing brought me comfort? Was it my indefatigable love of "story"? I can't say.
I can say that I take great joy in the role playing of my little ones. I love hearing them create new stories from the ones they've read in books, seen in movies, or lived themselves. The latter can be a little hard when I hear things like "Mommy and Daddy," but there is also a sense of gratitude that they are able to process their joys and disappointments in their own way and in their own time.
In their play they are growing. They are learning. They are healing.
Perhaps we could all use a few hours with Barbie and her friends.
Part 1:
ReplyDeleteIt took the greater part of 10 days for this to percolate through my mind and brew old memories to the surface. I remember playing with Barbie dolls, puppets, and stuffed animals with my sister. Between her being six years older than I and ruling the play by virtue of my awe for her, and much of our play being inspired by the beloved Muppet Show, there weren't many daring rescues--mostly dialogue. The daring rescue stories were relegated to solo play with matchbox cars, space legos, and castle legos. Her entry into middle school abruptly ended our play time, as it did for me six years later. Yet the stories were always there, latent and frequently percolating to the surface even without the help of instantiating objects.
From what I remember of the research, play is critical to working out how we will live life, from nurturing to conflict resolution. Story is simply how we imagine our world, how we form or fail to form those "noble plans" to enact the "noble deeds by which we stand" (Isa 32:8). When Christ sets us free, He liberates our imaginations by freeing us to frame our world in terms of a pure heart, and a hunger and thirst for just-loving kindness. Dr. Ryken intuitively grasped this in writing his "Liberated Imagination" and working on the ESV committee.
Those puppets and stuffed animals remained a constant. They were crucial to surviving those marathon drives in the car on family vacations to Colorado, Wyoming, Washington. Vacation was more work than play--driven by my dad's goal-oriented restlessness that we needed relief from him, from over-cooked hard-boiled eggs, and those curious butt-sores that form no matter how cushioned the car seat is. The animals also brokered peace by forming a boundary line in the back seat :) They also accompanied us in "spying out the land" as we, behind trees and shrubs, clandestinely observed our parents' activities in campsite.
I used to encircle myself in bed with my stuffed animals: they sat all across the head board and lined my side (I had a full-sized bed). They still lined the headboard all through high school and college (at least at home), and one or two would sleep beside me. "Encircling love."
Part 2:
ReplyDeleteI think that's how I imagined marriage, and why the Scripture speaks of "comfort" in the story of Isaac and Rebekah, warmth and companionship in work in Ecclesiastes. The covering garment (“Salmon” = “garment”) and Jeremiah's picture of encircling love (31:22) dress the idea in breathtaking refulgence and quieting warmth. Face to face is important, but most of marital life was intended to be lived side-by-side, yoked for labor, love, and rest. How shattering when one spouse simply withdraws without explanation or reason. It was especially shattering for me: returning from Iraq to an empty bed and a woman whose voice oddly trailed off into muffled tones whenever I would ask her why, while filling the rest of life with raging vitriol and hardened looks of hateful, disparaging contempt that communicated I was a piece of ****.
Play and imagination are crushed by the swarm of deceptive lies
(Psa 118:12) you speak of in your video--what the early Church diaspora in the deserts of North Africa called "logismoi." Even when you knew me in college, I was writing journal entries wondering if I was an "esoteric freak," struggling against the lie that sin was a "nature," and the lie that my life was unendingly marred by crude libido and instinct. It has taken me years, and some help from Evagrius, to fight back with Scripture, particularly Eccl 3:11-14, Prov 8, Zeph 3:17, and the stories of Leah, Rahab, Ruth, Jepthah, and David. By these, who bore God's name, I can say, "In the name of the LORD, I cut them off." Reminiscent of that animated and cutting figure with her paring knife and money plant...
Seize upon the Scripture as a sword of imagining, my sister. Let it frame God's desires for you, "instruct you in the way chosen for you." He is able, as almighty God, to call things into being which are not; He is willing, as a loving Father, to fulfill your beautiful imaginings. Cut away the excuses and liberate your imagination. Know that there is at least one who is with you in this struggle, and many more, whom He has hidden in their "own story", across the world.