at Mitch's home, Kalispell
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Bring: appetizers and wine
A few of us are getting together March 8th to play an atypical game designed by a friend of mine for adults to engage with the spaces / people around them: Jared Wood's Atlas
We'll report about that to the group next week, as it relates to this topic.
I'd like some banter prep materials on this topic if you can find something you like about the relevance of play, or the evolution of play, or how play is changing for kids/society now, or wherever else the word "Play" takes your mind. The blog is barebones right now, so help me fill it in with colored pencils and playful doodling. Please, dear god, let play mean more than a white triangle on a red backdrop.
vs.
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From Anna:
As I thought about this and realized that I do not "play" much anymore, I started thinking about why play is important and the non verbal skills that happen/develop. And then I thought about my pony Pancho and how he "plays" (because I "play" with him and other horses the most). Play is invigorating physically, intellectually, and it pushed boundaries---this is a reminder that I need to play more.
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From Sabine: Check out the seven categories of play designated on this website: http://www.nifplay.org/science/pattern-play/
Personal narrative: Of the categories of play from the website above, I've always been primarily drawn to social play. I think back to the playground at school or aspen woods of East Glacier or the elaborate neighborhood games with friends for my years in Houston, and what sticks out most is:
1. the rush and full body/mind surge of the moment of game on,
2. the hope for the recess bell to never ring or for dinner time/dark never to arrive, and
3. the eye contact among my most trusted comrades making non-language pacts and plans over the heads of the others in the group who were ninnies or bossy or trouble to the art of play in some way with a discerning child glance & momentary summation.
When we played Jared's game the other night I thought of my best comrades in those younger years - Mickey, Hillary, Angela, Chad, Becky. We played hard, and we were good at it. War in our Houston neighborhood on Arnold Street is hands down the game I still crave to play, and sorry Jared, but I didn't get that satiated via Atlas. War was an elaborate game of hide and seek that encompassed two full city blocks, generally lasted several hours, and had one main premise: be the last to be found & you were the master of War. Initially all kids scattered but the one who had been found first last time (now the sole seeker); you had one minute to secure your initial hiding spot. As kids were found, they formed a posse. It was risky to make ties with just anyone because once they were part of the search posse, your hiding spot was up, unless they were a comrade that was more loyal to you even from the other side (a rare kid). You could move locations, so long as you weren't seen by anyone in the search posse; this was a smart technique to hide where they'd thoroughly looked, and satisfying to cut it very close to them to add to the rush of the outsmarting and outdoing. Being seen, via obvious eye contact, meant you were part of the posse, game up for you. All hiding spots were legal, in houses, in backyards we weren't supposed to be in, in a house under construction, etc. so long as you were in the two block boundary. It was the 80s after all, and the parents were who knows where.
My sweet spot was the backyard fence line from my house all the way to the end of the block six or seven houses down. You could climb this fence line and never touch down onto grass if you were tenacious. It was a block with no alley, so it was nearly impossible to find a kid spidermaning it on a pink wood fence (to match the pink house) of the unhappy elderly lady on our block. There were two Dobermans and one Rottweiler along the way, one of which attacked my left leg during a War session that took me out for a few days. Oh, to get to hang along that fence again, place my hand and footholds more stealthily than Alex Honnold when the posse came within my view, so that I remained out of theirs. Rockclimbing, skiing, trailrunning, sprinting over logs sometimes gives me just a touch of it, but it is really War that I am after, the consequences and strategizing among the social layers, as well as the physicality. I want to measure who I can show the pink wood fence move to, and who I cannot. Jared's game reminded me of my drive to sidestep property/adult rules & access that broader kid world like fence lines, make silent pacts with one or two out of the group, dismiss the others as outside of that scope of loyalty/prowess though still valued players, and play like the world depended on it.
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