afterwords::9::longing

**Play as Longing
[A Seventh assumption] We leave so little time to play that we can’t sustain the internal experience of play; and therefore, only actually experience the longing to play. This longing becomes our belief about play, that play eludes us. Now we prime our self for disappointment; and we displace our own inner healing process.


A comment from a 30-year high school reunion comes back to me. A man wrote about going out and playing catch with his 11-year old son. It remained in memory a priceless treasure. It captures a window into play. The behavior unlinked from the game of baseball holds a moment of connection. Sports unfortunately tend to overemphasize competition and present play as skill. In this moment a father and son fulfill the American dream of connection. I remember the man’s father and imagine the longing this man held for his father's attention and then we can reflect on a healing legacy this passes forward.


In this process of inviting play back into our life, we will probably have to remind ourselves that we really still do remember how. We can state that pretending that we didn’t know how to play anymore represented a really long game we played. In retrospect it seems like a poor idea. We don’t have to play that any more.