Some people make New Year’s resolutions. Some set a word of intention. This year, I had no plans to do either. There were several reasons, not the least of which was that after all the music-making, cookie baking, and family peace retaining of December, I didn’t have the energy.
On New Year’s Day, I finally found time to relax with a book. And a word jumped off the page at me. I think my word for 2019 chose me. The word is play. I thought of the saying, “we do not quit playing because we grow old, we grow old because we quit playing.” And I wondered, when was the last time I played?
Over the past several years, I’ve thought, spoken and written about the need for rest. There is some overlap, but play is not the same as rest. Play, at it’s best, includes joy and laughter. Also, while rest and play can both be solitary or communal, I tend to think of play as more relational. Joy and laughter are best shared.
I was curious what the dictionary would say, and found there were 95 definitions for play. (Of course it is a noun, a verb, and is used in verb phrases and idioms.) The Old English is a cognate with the Middle Dutch pleien, meaning to leap for joy, dance, rejoice, be glad. I liked that.
My own definition of play might be “something you do just for the joy of it.” During December, I played beautiful songs, and that certainly is a kind of play. But it’s also my job. I had practiced what I needed to practice, and played it when I needed to do so. Yesterday I truly “played”, sitting down at the piano just for the enjoyment of it.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on play, and how you incorporate it into your life.
