Playing is Serious Business
When it comes to play I live with two experts. Zack, with an imagination that can turn a stick into a dolphin, fishing pole, race car, pencil, or gun, all in one hike. Scott, who will climb over under and around to get to new places and rarely takes no for an answer. Both live to splash, hold, dance, chase, catch, throw, climb and laugh. I used to take hikes in the woods, now I play in the woods.
Zack and Scott play without thinking. When I teach them life skills such as how to button a shirt, I have to break it down into small steps. Zack and Scott cannot explain playing to me. I asked them once, Zack laughed and ran off on his toy horse. Scott simply explained “play is fun.” To understand I had to spend time playing with them. They are growing up fast and my research needed to be completed before it was too late.
The best place to watch them play is during walk in the woods. For all their lives one of our favorite places has been Shu Swamp. It is a small preserve bisected by several streams that lead to a pond before flowing into Mill Neck Creek on to Oyster Bay before making it into Long Island Sound. Each hike is a wonderful combination of routines and something new. Our first stop is always the “big bridge” a wood platform that overlooks the pond. They love to pick up rocks, throw them into the muck and watch them disappear. Scott happily toddles back and forth to get one rock after another. Finding them is just as much fun as throwing them. Scott does not just grab any rock there are ones he takes and ones he leaves on the ground. I never can figure his pattern. He doesn’t think to carry a bunch of rocks all at once so that he won’t have to go back and forth. It is all play.
If the boys had a set purpose, they would surely miss opportunities to play. At one of the many small streams Zack once showed Scott how to flip wet leaves out of the water by waiting for one to float by and then flicking them with a stick until they jumped out of the water. While we were catching these “brownies” and pretending they were fish, I saw a caddisfly larva. Quickly, they both learned to spot them as well. We were amazed at the way they used stones to protect themselves by gluing them to their bodies in intricate patterns that made a camouflaged stone fortress. The boys’ questions lead to answers and more questions. We stopped at the library on the way home.
Our next stop is a fallen tulip tree they call “sleeping giant log,” it lays as a bridge across a large mucky area. Scott loves walking along the fallen log and will not let me hold his hand. I hover next to him tiptoeing in the mud ready to catch any slips. He races back and forth yelling, “did it, did it!” Zack likes new challenges, which means trying different ways to cross the log. He once carried a huge stick all the way across and then back to the car. That stick laid in our front yard for a month as a trophy to his success.
Another regular stop at the “Big Bridge” to race leaves down the stream. The game started when Zack and Scott began to rescue leaves floating in the stream. They teamed up to pull leaves out of the water by sitting on the bridge and using sticks to guide them to the stream bank. Evolving from that game, a competition began to see whose leaf floated downstream the fastest. After a fair amount of trial and error experimentation they figured out that the long thin leaves are the best. Much debate revolved around just where one was allowed to drop the leaf in the current and other rules of the race.
When we take these hikes, the friends we played with were not all humans. Zack and Scott always find animals to hold. It's amazing. We stopped at our favorite mud filled wet spot where tadpoles can be found. With a skilled grab and a small net they captured a tadpole. Scott can barely hold on it is so big. In a year or so it will become a bullfrog, but in the meantime it is bigger than Scott’s thumb. Occasionally, they will catch one that has begun to grow legs. After a few minutes of captivity and conversation the boys let the tadpoles go.
After that it was off to the rotten logs that give shelter to red-backed salamanders. This being a swamp means there are a lot of rotten logs. We have been here enough to know which logs have salamanders and which do not. They hold them gently, in cupped hands, careful not to touch the tails. Red-backed salamanders can break off their tails as a means to escape from predators.
Our last stop was the triple trunk tulip tree. Zack called it the “train tree.” I have no idea why. We climbed between the trunks and headed for Boston (that is where their cousins live). Other times they have used the tree to be anything from scientists studying bobcats to truck drivers.
Shu Swamp is a small patch of trees on Long Island surrounded by suburban excess but to Zack and Scott it is their playground. It is their setting for whatever their minds can imagine. Seeing this place and the world through their eyes helps me to play. The most amazing thing about the way Scott and Zack play is that there is no before or later, just now. They play as they eat ice cream, it is all about the taste with not a thought of calories, cost or any guilt. Ice cream must taste a lot better that way. How wonderful it must be for playing to be your work.
When we crossed the wet spot near the parking lot, Scott did a pitter patter dance that mud. Quickly, Zack joined in. Mud splattered everywhere on pants, jackets, bodies and I held my tongue. I could always clean the car. They loved the sound and the feel of the squishy.
Their playing is also their praying. Outdoors is where we can walk with God, life spirit, goodness, whatever anyone wants to call it. Outdoors is time apart from the media world. It is time for the more than human world, time to walk in the presence of the others and not in a place of products. These are wordless prayers that are said by simply being there, but one has to be there. They are not prayers of requests, but prayers of celebration. They are not prayers born of fear, but of love.
This kind of play and prayer helps the land. It makes Zack and Scott more responsible citizens. They are becoming native to the land in which they live because they are engaging in play that is unique to their home. This connection to the land will lead them to love and protect their home ground, now and in the future. Whether it is blankie or a favorite stuffed animal we care for what we love. The land is becoming their security blanket. Playing on a computer does not connect one to a place, neither does playing sports. A sports field is a sports field in Arizona or New York. Sports is not the kind of play that fosters love of place. This kind of play could be done anywhere and anyplace. Good play in the wild outdoors is interaction with the uniqueness of the place.