Playground

So these projects, these blog-jects (you know, cooking your way through Julia Child's French recipes, or taking a photograph of the back of your head every day, or, I don't know, making the time to play with your kids for an hour a day for a whole year) should, at some point, be revelatory, right...or otherwise what's the point? I mean, my main purpose is, as I have said, to give my children more of my undivided attention and also to really play with them while they are still young enough to want me to. But as with any creative project, shouldn't you also want to learn something? So far in this month of play I've had a few moments of inspiration, but not much by way of revelation...until tonight.

And tonight my revelation came from the most unlikely source...so unexpected I'm almost embarrassed to even say it. Anyway, it's Saturday and Patrick is at a gallery opening and the girls are asleep and there's nothing on TV and I am generally restless and so earlier I turned to this movie called "Yes Man." I wandered in and out of the room, letting it be my background jibber-jabber that TV so often is, until this scene where Jim Carrey's character (who has decided to say YES to everything apparently) walks into a club and sees Zooey Deschanel's band -- Munchhausen Syndrome By Proxy playing). Now, I love Zooey Deschanel, I just do. And who could resist a band named after one of the creepiest mental illnesses ever (so creepy, in fact, I even wrote an entire novel about it). And suddenly I got sucked into the Carrey/Deschanel/"Yes Man" vortex. And then came the scene where they sneak into the Hollywood Bowl and are talking about how little it matters what you do with your life as long as it gives you true pleasure. The direct quote is, "The world is a playground.You know that when you are a kid but somewhere along the way, everyone forgets it.”

And it got me thinking. I'm not sure I have seen the world as a playground for a long time. I was kind of a serious kid. I didn't goof off in class. I rarely got into trouble. I actually remember there being moments when I was a teenager that I ached to be able to just let go, to be free-spirited like some of my friends. When my guy friends went through a streaking phase, it was excruciating...the agony of not ever being able to have that same delicious sense of abandon and adventure. (I was always the look-out...never the streaker.) Growing up was, in some ways, a huge relief. And as I watched this cheesy movie (which is paused right now so I can get back to it in a minute), I was struck with a vivid recollection of a road trip that I made about fifteen years ago with my husband and his sister from Seattle, where we had been living, to Flagstaff. I remember getting up to about 6,000 feet (where desert turns to mountains) and that my sister-in-law made us stop to car so she could get out and play in the snow. It was cold, we'd been driving forever, but my husband stopped and they got out and played. I remember sitting inside the truck, overwhelmed with a melancholy feeling, wishing for something I couldn't quite articulate.

Anyway. There it is: Revelation #1. In order for this project (blog-ject) to have some real meaning (for me as well as for the girls), I need to work on seeing the world as a playground and myself as someone who is allowed to play there. That's the hard part maybe. I don't know.

P.S. Tonight I actually did ballet with Kicky in the living room. I may not be able to walk tomorrow.