#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream
January, so far, soft weather. Warm, melting, not brittle and icy as January can be. The brook running, the water table high, the river placid. Much peace on walks in the dampness. All the trees damp and the bark moist. Droplets of water hanging from all the vines and branches. A long way from summer drought. I have two groups today: Charles River Writers, back in my own home after construction. We meet by the fireplace, and the setting is lovely, but not ideal. This is a busy house of people who work from home! But we manage. And in the afternoon I facilitate a writing prompt in Frank’s team call, and that’s online. I wander from room to room to find quietness, as the final bits of construction are done. Frank has an early phone call in bed with a friend in another country, and a plan is developing for another trip we will take together. In our sixties decade, this year, may be a big travel year for us. Our time to explore places together and revisit favorite places. Something we enjoy together. We had so little of this in the early years of being married, young children, being broke, working hard. We went, in the time and trips we had, to and from my parents’ home in Mass. and Florida, and were grateful for those chances to be with my family. We will see where this year takes us, near and far, at work and at play. Someone earlier today said he didn’t see what “play” had to do with “learning and growing.” And I answered that Maria Montessori believed wholeheartedly in play as the primary way children learn.
“Play is the work of the child.”
Play is what I do on my walks by taking pictures. I take so many to find the ones that really are beautiful and mean something to me. The keepers are few, and special for that reason. The ones I share are the ones I know are “good.” What do I mean by good? I mean they tell a story or capture something beautiful or tell something true or evanescent. And I know I am playing because I have no expectations, and I lose track of time, and I am focused and engaged and interested and happy. I am trusting my instincts. I am letting my instincts guide me. I am being expressive. I am being emotional. I am caring deeply for the earth, for weather, for habitat, for what is shown to me, for what I am able to connect to and begin to understand. I am stressless, un-tense. I am attuned to my sense of sight, sound, texture, color, smell. I am surprised. I am spontaneous. I am astonished.
“The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct.”
Half Moon Brook