Mission to Play

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I want to talk about play. Yesterday afternoon on our regular walk Diana and I passed the school yard at 321 where we used to spend warmer evenings with our sons. Today they're teenagers and play on their own, and we no longer while away hours watching them go up and down the slides.

Yesterday evening my younger son phoned from the subway platform to double-check his direction: "should I go toward Manhattan or Coney Island?" And feeling his dislocation in space brought me close to my dislocation in time. From the outer edge I'm watching him expand into wider circles of friends and confusion where I can't follow, but where I've been before.

The snow is gone today; it's bright and sunny and February-warm at 35 degrees. But I remember when we'd forge through white-out conditions, all booted and bundled, stiff with layers of thermal underwear, focused and intent on cutting the first sled-way on the big hill in the park. My friend Ed and I, grumpy about the stinging needles in our faces, would laugh begrudgingly and acknowledge that we should soak it up, enjoy the time now, because they wouldn't want us with them for all that much longer.

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I hope my sons will continue to learn about play as a release from their work, their studies, their obligations. More, I hope they'll learn about play as a way of learning about life, both the hard and the easy. These days, for me, play is an unexpected moment to explore a frame of light falling on week-old roses, a conversation with my wife, a joke told by a neighbor, and the slightly woozy dizziness that comes with not knowing exactly what comes next.

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