08. Rolling Down a Grassy Hill
I've played more in the past three weeks than I have in a decade (or more).
Hello, and welcome to issue 08! Maybe you noticed that this is a week late, maybe not. I didn’t write issue 08 last week because I completely lost track of time, and even when I realized that it was indeed a mine Oranges weekend, I couldn’t summon up an idea or the energy to write and publish anything.
In the past three weeks, I’ve started a new job, adopted a kitten, and decided to apply to grad school. The job and the kitten have brought into my life an intense amount of something that has not been present for long time: play. (I can’t say the same about grad school applications.) I spend 30 hours a week looking after a two year old and a five year old, and we spend the majority of those hours playing. Then, when I get home from work, there’s a kitten in my room who wants to play.
Since college, or even since high school, my body has become accustomed to three positions and movements: sitting, standing/walking, and lying down. Of course, there are some variations thrown in: yoga, a night of dancing, a few swims, my annual ten minute run.
Now, my body is regularly doing the following: throwing a football, running for a touchdown, pretending to tackle the five year old as he runs for a touchdown, throwing endless pitches, rolling down a grassy hill, being tackled in Pokemon battles, having two and five year olds walk all over me when I’m “dead” on a hardwood floor, giving piggy back rides, and holding the two year old’s hands while she walks up my legs and stomach and arrives at my chest in a towering stance — just to name a few things.
At home, the kitten is rambunctious after snoozing all day and wants to claw and bite at my hands every time he completes a chaotic race around my bedroom. When I get in bed at night, I turn my hands and feet into mysterious shifting shapes under the covers that the kitten loves to chase and attack. I try to drain his energy this way so he doesn’t wake me up at 5am with a litter-scented paw smack to the face.
During snack time, some of the few moments I’m not being tackled, the two year old says, “I wanna see your titty tat!” So I take out my phone and show them videos of my titty tat chasing after the moving forms underneath the covers. “Who’s under there? Who is that?” she asks. “I don’t know! Who do you think?” I ask mischievously. “It’s you!” she says. Then asks me to play the video again, and again, and again. “Who’s that? Who’s that?!” The delight never ends.
At the end of my work days and my work weeks I am exhausted in a way that feels close to the exhaustion I felt as a kid after a long evening spent running around outside: a shimmer of sweat cooling as the sun sets, skin a bit scraped and dirty, clothes smelling of sweet grass. One difference is, of course, the fact that my body is no longer that of an eight year old, but I don’t really want this to be about getting “old.” Another difference comes from the fact that the care and safety of these children is my primary job responsibility, so no matter how much I try to play with them on their level, I’m still the adult. I can’t play completely carefree, like they can — I have to be caring constantly, protecting their ability to play carefree.
While some aspects of play are physically demanding, I’ve been reminded that other aspects are incredibly inspiring. Yes, I am tackled by a five year old multiple times a day, but it’s worth it to be able to enter into the kids’ world of make-believe and storytelling. It’s always just the three of us, and I can play into their stories and the characters they assign me without embarrassment or shame. There are no other adults around. I can sing and dance and make weird noises and roll down a grassy hill and be a leopard or a Pokemon or a blablabla. The kids never judge me — except when the tower crashes down due to some faulty construction that they think I’m responsible for. Failure is something we’re learning, slowly but surely.
The world feels so serious right now. We are faced with multitudes of very serious and life-threatening problems. The election looms, winter is coming, the pandemic persists. I’m grateful to be privy to the imaginative, playful world of these kids. They make me laugh every day and provide a brief respite from all the doom and gloom. Children are our future: a quote that’s corny until you spend time with kids and remember that it’s true. Not only are they the future, they are an urgent reminder that we are responsible right now and always for building a better world — a responsibility we need to take very seriously, but one that requires equal parts creativity, joy, and make-believe.
✽ Six Things
Roll down a grassy hill, if you’re able.
The Charlottesville Anti-Racist Organizing Fund has almost reached its $40k goal: donate here to support Black and Brown leaders, organizers, and artists in Charlottesville.
Vote AND:
A lil Gender 101 for those who might need it (also follow @alokvmenon for thorough, poetic, nuanced explanations):
Read “Whores at the End of the World” by Sonya Aragon:
“I know whose side I want to be on if and when the world ends, and it’s not the one that’s blue-uniformed, pristine and cashless, fearful of the sick and the dead, holding on, with some vain hope, that the law and its enforcement have any meaning at all beyond this world. I want to be on the side of covert phone calls, and no paper trails, and networks of care, populated by those of us who would rather die than tell—on the side that has already been blamed, and already been sick, and already been masked.”
It’s fall. Make applesauce and listen to Lucinda Williams.
✽ Portrait Of Me Rolling Down A Grassy Hill
Thank you for reading, I love you, I’m sending you a big hug ♡
PS. Adele and I are releasing our third corner office publication, all about romance, with a virtual release party on October 29. I’ll include more details in the next issue.