Make Believe: The Art of Play

“How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you was?” asked major league pitcher Satchel Paige. I like his query, even with its murdered conjugation, because it evokes another intriguing question – who would you be if you didn’t know who you were?

Too often I hear people bemoaning their age wishing they were 20, 30 or 40 again. Why, I wonder? Is it being younger they miss or what they did when they were younger they long for again? Maybe it’s what they felt they were capable of at that age, or perhaps, it’s a longing for an opportunity to have a do-over with their life, a chance to reverse some regrets.

Once upon a time, I happened on a quote by Madeleine L’Engle, writer of young-adult fiction. It was such a simple, wise thought I recorded it in my Quote Journal for safe keeping and future reference. L’Engle said, “The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve ever been.” What an intriguing, gratifying and legitimate concept, I thought.

I latched onto her notion with its brilliance and inherent carte blanche to be whatever age I wanted to be, whenever I wanted. Her angle offered a free ticket to ride back to be whomever we were when we were younger, to pick up where we may have abandoned dreams or never bothered reaching for them at all but with the collective experience and knowledge of the sum of all our ages. We could make believe we were that young again because we were! Nothing has been lost after all.

As a child I was read and reread and then myself read and reread a book of familiar nursery rhymes. From Goldie Locks and the Three Bears, Jack and Jill, The Old Woman Who Lived In a Shoe, The Three Pigs to Mr. Nobody who supposedly did the mischief in everybody’s house. Mr. Nobody had to have gargantuan shoulders. He was the fall guy for all the mishaps perpetrated by those too cowardly to confess.

Even today as a significantly ripened adult, I still invoke lines from those nursery rhymes. The kid in me finds comfort in recalling and quotiong some of those tales. When we had our business and employees, occasionally something wasn’t assembled or packaged correctly. When trying to find out who was responsible in an attempt to curb it from recurring, it was baffling how often no one would take “credit”. I concluded it must have been Mr. Nobody who obviously was still up to his mischievous ways. In a similar vein of recalling those nursery rhymes, I find it uber satisfying when our home grocery shelves are restocked and firewood stack replenished, bursting with plentitude. I often exclaim with great pleasure that Mother Hubbard’s cupboards are full once again. It makes me feel extremely content and that all’s well with the world, just as the nursery rhymes did for me as a kid.

It wasn’t Madeleine L’Engle’s brilliant insight, though, that turned me onto the art of play, granted me permission to reuse any of my previous ages, and gave me license to act “as if” from whatever age, because I’ve been doing that before becoming aware of her wisdom. I have a substantial kid inside me. Even at 62 I enjoy the challenge of balance walking one foot in front of the other atop a narrow concrete curb, as if I’m in gymnastics on the high school balance beam once again. L’Engle’s concept, however, is an extraordinary invitation to all to make life more magical, to play and act as if. I believe that taking full advantage of tapping into all the ages a person has ever been, letting them out, trying them on and having fun with them again, helps to nourish the kid in all of us. It makes the heart so much lighter. What else is life for, after all? As Anne Lamott said, “100 years from now? All new people.”

Married over 40 years, I often refer to what Steve and I do domestically as “playing house”. Remember when you did that as a kid? At least some of the women reading this no doubt did so. I love it, our playing house. Sometimes it feels like when we were first married and settling into our nest and all was new and exciting and domesticity was one of those badges proving you had become a responsible adult.  I could do chores how mom had taught me or my way since I was now the queen of my castle and got to decide. Approaching homey chores with a sense of play and happiness takes the drudgery out of what many dread and grumble about. Your home is your nest or your castle, depending on your point of view. It’s yours to take delight in, care for and celebrate with joy.

Which leads me to how you’ve “lined” your nest. Steve and I are convinced that, in another life time, we lived out West, maybe even the SouthWest. We knew it as kids. We have pictures of Steve at six-ish in cowboy boots and me at five-ish in my Plains Indian outfit. As a bona fide tom boy as a girl (and even now), I much preferred playing cowboys and Indians to amusing myself much with dolls. In this life, though, we reside in Connecticut. We absolutely love the West and our hearts almost ache with love for it but, for a variety of reasons, are settled here in eastern, not even western Connecticut. There’s no bucking the Fates sometimes and the winter weather here is way milder and much shorter. All coins are two sided. Nevertheless our hearts are torn between loving New England and our other favorite place 2,000 miles away. The solution – we’ve created a Western oasis in New England. Our nest is lined with the trappings of things we love about the West and Southwest. We play as if we are there and are pleased. It’s like having our cake and …

Our home’s decor includes cow skulls both real and sculptures, Southwestern art, Western style furniture, lamp shades laced with leather, metal and concrete cacti in our landscaping, and a trove of Westernesque treasures we’ve brought back while on vacations at our once-upon-another-lifetime home turf. In effect, it puts us in a permanent mode of playing like we’re out West. Kids at heart still, our fort now is just a tad bigger and more sophisticated. We often call it our resort.

Then there are the other Western-like things we’ve done and do. When we volunteered at a non-profit for retired horses here in Connecticut, Steve was asked to check one of the fence lines. The fence that needed checking was a distance away and the task required carrying tools so he and I jumped in our trusty steed we named Jeep Wrangler and “rode fence” together. In the movie Monte Walsh, riding fence was the lowest job a cowboy could have, but we didn’t see it that way. We were play acting something we’d seen often in the Western movies that we loved to imbibe by making believe and living our cowboy dream. How lucky are we that we both share the same love of the West and its trappings? And, we’re playing it up to the max.

Similarly, while staying in the only visitors cabin at Deerwood Ranch in Wyoming several years ago, we were asked if we’d like to go along to help move some cattle, rounding them up with the modern cowboy’s horse, the ATV. Would we, would we? Absolutely was THE only answer. “Help” was more like enjoying the adventure, taking pics and opening the occasional gate as we rode along with the experienced ranchers.  We were thrilled and felt like we were living an episode of Rawhide, back when Rowdy Yates, aka Clint Eastwood, helped drive cattle across prairies, down embankments across rivers and up embankments again to the other side. Rollin, rollin, rollin, keep them doggies rollin, Rawhide! Yeehaw!

And how Western is this, I ask? I even rode a brahma bull when the PBR (Professional Bull Riders) was in town … o.k. more like sat a brahma bull. Gus stood still with me on top of him because he wasn’t in the chute and cinched. There’s also the possibility it was because he was retired from the circuit and for all I know sedated. We were in Las Vegas for an automotive convention, the PBR was in town and there was a mega Western Marketplace at the Mandalay Bay Hotel. Gus was at the Mandalay for a close up look and photo op. Not an opportunity to be missed … I paid my $10 and hopped on.  And, I’m proud to say, I stayed on for over eight seconds. Got a photo as proof.

If you’re going to play like you live in the West, (or whatever it is you’re making believe about) it’s important that you at least own and wear some of the getups, too: Ariat brand, stylish Western mules that look like boots, Western belts, jewelry, and hats, some of it worn on a daily basis. We’re playing but we’re not fooling around about our roles. This make believe is serious stuff.

When Steve was in high school he was given the opportunity to fill out an evaluation, an assessment of what professions he would be suited for. It was determined this teen, who lived in the Midwest full of open farmland and few trees would make a good forest ranger. Go figure. Two colleges and engineering degrees later, engineering was the career path he took though and excelled at. He also started a street rod parts business which we excelled at. It’s time to recall Madeline L’Engle’s thoughts about the retention of all the ages you’ve every been. Almost three decades after Steve’s profession assessment was done in high school, we bought nine acres of woods and “poof”, Ranger Steve came to life. Although not a paid position and not in a state or national forest, Ranger Steve blazed an elaborate system of hiking trails on our little piece of heaven we call Inglewood, the same parcel where our East Coast western decor home resides. He tends to it by cutting dead wood, maintaining our “forest” like a devoted gardener tends his garden of flowers and plants. Right on, Madeleine, you never lose all the other ages you’ve ever been.

As for me, like a child chatting with their inanimate friends, their stuffed animals or their real furry friends, perhaps a cat or a doting puppy, I talk to our resident crows in crowez. They recognize me when I place morning offerings of trimmed fat, meat bones, egg shells and occasionally peanuts on crow rock in our desert landscaped backyard. Corvids are intelligent. They have the largest cerebral hemisphere of birds and exist on all continents except Antarctica. They see me coming and start a conversation among themselves, “Hey, hey, here she is again with goodies. Oh boy, oh boy.” I join in with their banter pretending they understand my amateur use of their caw-caw speak. Sometimes they seem to answer me but comprehension of their jargon flies over my head. Dr. Dolittle knows what I’m talking about. Still, it makes me feel connected to them and the kid inside me is pleased at our game.

So, if you’re feeling old, maybe wishing you were younger again, maybe back in grade school band playing your piccolo, or wowing the high school assembly with the awesome percussive tap dance you performed as a sophomore, or sinking three-pointers on the court like you did in intramural college basketball, remember Madeleine L’Engle’s axiom about age and be your own soul architect. Reclaim yourself and whatever age you want. You still own them all. Don’t die with your abandoned or unrealized music, art, novel, song, dance, poem, gourmet cook, cowboy or essence of what you’d really love to do or be still inside you. Be creative. Play again. Act as if. Make believe.

Link to “Mr. Nobody”

Link to “Rawhide” Theme Song

Posted by carol@mylifewithcreativity.com & filed under How To. This post has 6 comments.