Because It's My WOK!
“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. ”
Stuffies at a party by Ron Lach
Once upon a time, in a moment of extra-real mom frazzle, I found my then toddler sitting in the middle of our breakfast nook, surrounded by ginormous puddles of water and overturned cups and spoons sprawled all over the table and floor. “What are you doing?!?” I asked in a slightly raised (okay, very raised) voice. I wasn’t especially interested in the answer as much as in making a point - she was doing something that needed to stop immediately. “Why are you making such a big mess with all this water?” I asked in horror and desperation. “Because it’s my WOK (toddler speak for ‘work’)!” she retorted, understanding on some level that using the word “work” was the only way I would grasp the gravity of what she was doing.
I understood on some level. After all, if Life and Lovely Things could have existed in 1986, my 5-year old self would certainly have tried to build it. My daughter Loved to use her hands. She would transfer pretty much anything from one container to another - dirt, beads, flour, water, you name it. It was her absolute jam, part of her divine contribution to the world, a showcasing of her natural gifts. I put down a tarp, and let her continue.
I believe children are tiny sages walking among us, an important part of the human community, tasked with helping us remember who we are. As I study my own, I’m not sure work and play were ever meant to be compartmentalized things. Years and a million iterations of “you can’t play until your work is done” have created a separation between work and play where I don’t think one naturally exists. Not only that, we’ve collectively elevated work, though the word seems to carry a heavy energy for those of us who have had our bodies used for years on behalf of production - a sense that something is going to be hard and unsatisfying, draining us of our life force. Children haven’t yet learned to separate, to take on the drudgery of what we adults refer to as “work,” and when they’re very small, they haven’t yet downgraded play. So when my daughter used the word, she was simply trying to convey that what she was doing was important (that much she had grasped), meaningful enough to require her attention. What I called play, she called work, and the difference was a matter of importance.
Aren’t we in the best position to define what is important to us, where we will place our attention, how we will use our gifts? Isn't it time we start to unravel the play/work dichotomy, which isn’t a dichotomy at all? Is play frivolous and inconsequential? Is work serious and critical? Are joy and gravity, pleasure and practicality, mutually exclusive ideas? If you’ve ever watched a child playing, it seems not. They are in a state of flow - there is joy, certainly, and also a focus and presence, the likes of which would make any supervisor swoon. They are quite serious about it. Serious enough to call it “work.” Serious enough to cry insistently, “but we’re playing,” when it’s time to run errands or clean something, as though adults should just get it. Serious enough to get lost in time and space. Now clearly dishes need to be washed, floors swept, and bills paid. But I believe it is possible to start to blur the lines between work and play, such that life itself becomes a more joyful experience - to play meaningfully, to get a little more light-hearted about work (“just a spoonful of sugar,” folks), and to release our expectations about which is which.
Play blocks by Suzy Hazelwood
But first, we must choose. We must decide, and keep deciding, what is meaningful enough to merit our precious attention - our creativity, focus, care, talent, and joy. In that way, we get about the work of creating our lives in the same way we created tea parties, played dress-up, and built towers as children. And what could be more meaningful than that?
Love in all things,
April
P.S. BTW, the toddler is now 10 and still Loves to use her hands. A true maker, she’s crafting fairy houses, designing clothes, and building forts. She’s also quite enterprising. The kid will make a dollar. I’m excited to see how her story unfolds (and mine :-)).
