In the morning yesterday on the playground after the bell rang for the start of school, my kids’ teacher said to me,

“I’m letting them play. They love to play.” She said, “I realize watching them how we’ve stopped playing, as if we’ve forgotten how. But they just begin, immediately.”

Around us an improvisation of movement has exploded across the playground: flapping hair, an orange shirt, a jean jacket, the sequins required for an ordinary day in second grade. A little hop skip dance. The search for a friend. They are playing Banana Tag, which involves alliances and ro-sham-bo (rock-paper-scissors).

Charlie has been talking with me about it at dinner lately–who is good at ro-sham-bo (apparently some people are seen as skilled in shooting out the right hand shape) and who is fast, about who has joined his alliance or formed another one.

As I watch them play now, I see that the game really is a dance. They square off, ro-sham-bo, and then one runs off, one stays in place until freed by the touch of another.

I stand with the two teachers, talking about one’s future plans and new haircut and the history of the Dominican Republic. And meanwhile, I study the children at play.

Cures for Writers Who’ve Forgotten How to Play

1. Write nonsense. A whole paragraph that is made of language and of sentences but makes no sense. Go.
2. Confess the details of what’s right in front of you. Your coffee table, the dust, the library book, the rug that belonged to your friend’s mother. Animate them: the coffee table a life raft floating, a dark creature sombulating; the bowl a magic portal; the book a code.
3. Admit something you are afraid of and something that makes you laugh. Make them trade places for a day, for a story, for a poem.