before I begin: Kelly Hayes published an important article about the power of mutual aid at large, and in Asheville at this moment of acute crisis. to support mutual aid causes there, you can donate to Hood Huggers or Aflorar Herb Collective. and click through the links to support grassroots/mutual aid efforts in Lebanon, in Sudan, and for evacuated Gazans in Cairo.
Today’s exercise is inspired by my father, Curt, who turned 80 earlier this month. For over fifty years, my dad has built playgrounds for a living, his career sparked by a serendipitous AmeriCorps position he found in the newspaper when looking for work in the early 1970’s.
Since learning how to install playgrounds in his 30s, his company Community Playgrounds has constructed over 16,000 playgrounds across parks and schools in California, providing space and inspiration for likely over a million kids over four decades to play. It’s a beautiful, tangible legacy.
Everyone who knows him is always shocked by his age - believing him to be at least a decade younger - and my siblings and I posit that his youthful energy and persona is directly fueled by his belief in the power of play. “Go out and play” is his mantra for the company, and for himself.

My dad’s love of literature and poetry is so much of the reason I was a poet in my teen years and a writer today. And in honor of him, and how his life has been in service to the power of play, I present to you “Serious About Play,” a reflective writing exercise to explore anti-goal-oriented play.
Click below to download (or on mobile, it just pops open in another window!) and take 30 minutes of quiet time for you to reconnect with your child-self and dream of what play can look like today.
Play is recentering.
I think those of us who have professionalized our creativity hold a special type of tension when it comes to play. We’ve taken the creative activities that brought empowerment, confidence and revelation to our lives – enriched and articulated our senses of self – and have commodified them. It is beautiful to pursue creativity as a vocation, but it can also ensnare. We can tend to focus on output and performance more than how the act of creation - experimentation within and between mediums, defying genre or category or “best practices” - makes us feel alive, human, honest. I and many of my creative professional friends struggle to make space for play that isn’t towards “skill building” or professional development.
We target so much of our self-expression to being known by others. I believe play is a way we can express ourselves to ourselves.
Play is reconnecting.
Acknowledging and embracing our “inner child” is often discussed and explored around trauma and healing - and rightfully so. I’ve taken part in deeply powerful guided meditations to reconnect with my inner child; holding space for her hurts and lacks, finding ways to listen and repair.
To take it one step (or skip, or wiggle) forward, I believe our relationship with our inner child can be one not just of service to old wounds but also centered in curiosity, celebration, and wonder in the present and towards the future.
Our inner child has much to teach us, to rustle up and pique inside of us. Our inner child can inspire self-reflection and inward examination that doesn’t feel clinical and cold but rather fuzzy, bright, squishy, inviting.
Play is vital.
Delight - and what we discover in moments of whimsy, fantasy and movement - are truly key to our survival. We do not need to suffer to earn joy.
Play is spiritual. Play is generative. Play is an exploration of boundaries and possibility. And in an age of crisis, agony and the bludgeon of late stage capitalism, play is an act of defiance and self-preservation.
Like rest, like poetry, play is essential.
I hope you enjoy the exercise and let me know what came up for you! til soon, <3 h
Love this! My dad’s a huge influence on my path as well.
I’m excited about trying out your exercise this weekend. One comment about Step 2 is that as someone with aphantasia, I actually am not able to imagine or visualize like the activity suggests. I guess I could write it instead of envisioning the scene?
This is a lovely reflection and it was great to learn about your dad’s work! Thanks for the exercise, will check it out xo