Something is beginning to happen. Yesterday, you began to explore the ways you play. You looked at the ways you did so as a child, and considered other ways you would like to now. In yoga there is a concept of Lila (also spelled Leela) – the play of life, or divine play. It is a concept that all that exists is the outcome of play. We could consider that through play we find the way we best engage with the world, and share our greatest talents. I think this relates to our traditional concept in western culture, which Shakespeare so aptly describes when he wrote “All the worlds a stage and all the men and women merely players.”
Did you ever see that movie with Maggie Gyllenhall and Will Farrell, Stranger Than Fiction? There is a fantastic scene in there that demonstrates what I am going to suggest you consider today.
If you decided not to watch it, Maggie’s character, Ana Pascal describes how she was going to Harvard Law School, but somehow her love of cooking for the study groups brought her true talent to the foreground of her life, leaving her with a D average and a clue as to how she was going to change the world. These types of accidents happen so commonly, I imagine you could tell me a tale or two about someone who “fell into” a new role that was so clearly them, even the way they did other things dripped with the signs of their gift. We all are like that. Did you know it?
I know a lot of artists, and I haven’t asked them permission to share their tales of finding their form of art, or I might recount them here, but many went through a variety of modalities before finding their personal niche. I have known a few physicists, too, and they are incredibly similar in how they were just bursting with curiosity and the desire to find the right application of that intensity. It can take a few tries to find what play works for us.
So okay – you are on the path, albeit loosely. How does sharing come in? Share your play with others. If you are exploring cooking, cook with or for others. Hold a recipe swap at your next potluck! Make it so it is not about you, but you get to see how you play with others. Because, we know that the fruits of our work cannot be for ourselves. We derive so much more joy from the sharing.
What about the sciences? Volunteer at a science museum, or for the science classes at a nearby school. Get a telescope and invite nieces and nephews over for a meteor shower. If you are working with the math, come help me! Just kidding – offer to work at the local tax support hub in the new year or look for aid agencies that may need math support for children or adults in the area. Honestly, math tutors are really needed. See how you do with doing math together.
What about other seemingly solitary interests like writing and singing? I think I have known many writers who felt it was sharing to go write at the coffee shop. Actually, when I was waitressing, there were several writers who would come to write. I tried to leave them to it. Knowing how important not breaking a thought is. There were a couple who felt I should stop working to sit and read manuscripts or listen to them read to me. That, honestly, was sort of rude, because it made me a captive at work instead of letting me share in the gift. No – I think writer workshops and literary groups are something that serve that purpose better. You may have special friends whose nature is also writing and who may be able to start such a group with you. But writing someone a story for a birthday, or gifting the family with the family story is something altogether different. It is a truly unique and appreciated gift. It still seems solitary in nature, but that is really the nature of this talent.
For some people, the talent or gift is so subtle or groundbreaking that they cannot have a clue unless they see themselves in groups. If you are still wondering what it is that you possibly have to offer – throw a party. Or create a gathering somewhere. Start taking time to visit places you’ve never ventured before and push yourself to meet 5 people on your trip. I am not necessarily talking about going to a new city, but to a store you would normally never enter. You may have to do these things often to get any real clues, but the group of people you meet will tell you something. If you are shy, this can be particularly difficult. But what you do, more so – how you do it – will tell you something about what you offer. Take pictures on your trips (okay, not in the stores, but…) create collages. Invite friends over to tea to tell them about your adventures and solicit feedback about what rhythms and repeating patterns they see. Take them with you.
All of these things are sharing. Sharing your experience of life – but also sharing how you experience life with others. This richness is what makes us all sit up in our chairs and listen when you share your tale, your talent, and your story.
Yoga Pose of the Day: Garudasana – Eagle Pose
Yogic Concept of the Day: I share my play with others.
So, to set the stage… let’s call it 1983. That puts me at ten years old by the end of the summer, entering 4th grade. The town is Chapman Kansas, population, 1200. A rural community with its roots in farming, and a military instillation nearby for culture. Originally founded by Irish immigrants, the original town grew up around the mill on Chapman Creek. Situated in a slight valley near the confluence of the creek and the Smokey Hill River, Chapman has an abundance of large cottonwood trees shading its brick paved streets ( or did have prior to the tornado of 2009 ). At that time, the town had a grocery store, a diner, a soda fountain, a clothing store, a pharmacy, a post office, a bank, an insurance office, a barber and a beauty shop, a large hardware store, and a newspaper office. The school district had a whole fleet of busses to bring all the farm kids to town, those of us within city limits walked to school… In the winter… Even if it was snowy.
I watched Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood every day before school. I watched Grizzly Adams every day after school. I hated school and was no good at homework. But on the weekend if Mother was in town, I was free from dawn till dusk to pretty much roam the town and fields. In good weather we rode our bikes around everywhere. We didn’t go anywhere, or fast, or do tricks… we were just out, talking and looking and being. Summer was for swimming at the community pool, and practically all the kids in town would be lined up before they opened up at 1pm… and we all stayed till closing. I had a couple of good friends, and my two cousins, my grandparents and my uncles for companions. Mother was a truck driver, a real honky tonk girl… and that is a whole ‘nother story. During the week if she was on the road, my sweet neighbor Debbie kept me, and on the weekends I was out at the farm with my Grandma and whichever uncles were living at home at the time. Some Saturdays, my cousin Amy and I would beg my Uncle John to take us to Junction City so we could go roller skating. He was usually hung over at this time, and probably only ever took us just so we would shut up. He would drop us off at 9 and pick us up at noon and then if he was feeling better, we’d visit Walmart and buy teen magazines and cassette tapes of Prince and Madonna. We were roller skating junkies. The rink was our main connection to new pop music, boys, and really awful junk food.
We walked the two miles out to the Chapman Creek bridge. The water was very shallow there and the trees were thick. Even on a hot day, it seemed cooler out there. Springs sprouted out of the steep banks, flowing out over the hairy green moss. I swear this moss glowed on cloudy days. We could kill a whole day out there if we brought food along. What did we do all day out there in our little wilderness? We built dams out of the flat limestone rocks, skipped many of those same rocks, we screamed and laughed trying to catch frogs and then being too grossed out to hold them. We dug clay from the bank and made a million little pinch pots. If my cousin Mickey was along, he’d catch a crawdad and get it to pinch his sister. I got a few tics, but I never did get a leach. Spiders surprised and frightened me, as did the occasional snake (but spiders are worse than snakes any day).
We could hike up the canyon… ok well 10 foot banks count as a canyon in Kansas…. To the old mill site. The buildings were all gone, but the stone foundations were still there and a little waterfall. My uncle had a ledger book from the store that was there. People came from many miles away to have their grain ground into flour. I loved looking at the precise, yet fancy, handwriting in that book… This family had a credit from trading back some of their flour, that family paid with freshly caught catfish, so and so hadn’t paid his bill since the last harvest, but they were still coming in every week for sugar and nails and other things that couldn’t be made at home. They traded horses to the army at Ft. Riley. Later on, when the railroad came through south of the mill, the town itself came into being near the crossing, and the mill became less and less of a focal point. As kids we knew these things, and going to the old mill site was like our own little archeological site.
Out at the farm, I had free range of the barn and outbuildings. The only place I couldn’t go was the north field. I-70 highway was just half a mile off and my grandparents worried that a driver would steal me and my cousins. It was a weird fear… bad people aren’t bound by pavement after all, but they said don’t go up there and so we didn’t. We did snoop around in the barn, getting filthy and catching the antisocial barn cats. Two of the uncles each had a roping horse, Black Horse and Willie. Black Horse was huge and patient and would happily let me ride around inside the fence without benefit of saddle or reins. Willie was a grump and a biter, which caused him to miss out on a lot of treats and brushing. The Grandmother would declare that I smelled like a goat in the evening and make me take a bath in the shallow iron tub. My grandmother was a wise woman… in the esoteric sense. She knew when I should be in the house for a call from my mother and when Grandpa was about to come in from the field. She would walk with me all around the farm yard in the spring to look for leaf buds and the first robins. She made angel food cake and noodles on the same day… using a dozen eggs… whites for the cake and yolks for the noodles . She showed me how to cut a shallow X on the bottom of tomatoes before blanching them to make them easier to peel for canning. She secretly let the dogs in on cold nights, and then denied it in the morning when I found them snoozing around the woodstove. She’d peel the velvet ribbon off her old nurse caps for me to make Barbie dresses with. She stood with me on freezing cold winter mornings watching the sparrows and scissor tail finches picking birdseed out of feeders on the wraparound porch. She was wonderful. She died when I was 12. I still miss her every day.
Oh the Barbies… at least one new one for every Christmas and birthday. My friend Cathy and I “played Barbies”.. but really they were just for me to dress. When I was very little, I made them dresses out of Kleenex and ponytail holders. Old clothes were fair game for me to cut up. Once I learned to use the sewing machine, I guess that’s when the costumer was born, because it never stopped. I went from Barbie clothes, to sewing class in Jr High, to theater and Renaissance Festival geekery in High School. I was a ghost, a gypsy, a Musketeer, working for months on a costume sometimes. Acting wasn’t it. I still have ridiculous stage fright. I just want to create the illusion, the visual, of another person in another place.. let the others have the lines. I did work in theater for several years and I did love the work… the politics were something else entirely.
Biking, hiking, skating, Barbies, mud, rocks, and the big Kansas sky…. I had no idea at the time what a special place I was in. A generation earlier I’d have had to work on the farm. A generation later and we’re too afraid to let our kids out of sight long enough for that kind of freedom and exploration. I’ve left out a lot… playing in the snow and tricks on the monkey bars… but I can see now that I was outside a LOT. Hmmm… this was your plan all along Beth… to make me look at the old playways that might give us a clue today. You sneaky devil! Thanks!
With such a rich experience to draw from, it seems there are so many clues there. I know you already use so much of yourself and share with others.
Are these experiences all connected to ideas for new ways to connect? Or are there some that are so much more “resonant?”
Are there specific ways you want to start?
Your experience is so rich, and I imagine it can stimulating to others’ memories, as well. Thank you!