pppendages viii-xiv two step e-g

We can play anywhere.

The sandbox serves as one of our earliest play settings. Maybe we still have positive sandbox memories. Write it in words or images. Map it so it exists here for later. My map appears indirectly. When I was growing up I heard my aunt tell the story about my scientist father who had the choice to spend his first school year out in the sand box, if he so chose, which he did choose, according to the story.

[anywhere begat maps]


Maybe a crib provides an early play setting. What early positive play memories does a crib inspire? I know that early in life I held the crib rail and raised myself up on my toes and lowered myself down on my heels. A neighbor reported to my mother that I spoke my first words, which she heard as “up and down”. This may be my first play setting in the safety of my crib. An image of a crib helps connect memory to that time past. Try it.

[first words begat story begat memory]





In the way I write I make these stories distant from the events to which they relate. By doing this on the one hand I increase attention to the connection, while on the other I focus attention on the degree of truth of any tale. Perhaps these things didn’t actually happen. In play we hold connections whether they occurred or not. This aspect of play creates the spell.

[story begat memory begat spells]

Ah, it happens here.

These settings establish our initial play spaces. Walls bound them, walls that we learned to climb over. It usually helps to know the frame in which we play. We have the safety of the container and the comfort it provides. We have an ability to expand past the boundary. Sometimes we climb out of that frame.

[safety begat expansion]