I was feeling grateful while reading an article that reflected on whether teaching was stunting other passions by Patrick Harris. Throughout it, I felt affirmed and validated in my own decade and a half experience from being busy all of the time to finding the time for the other things I care deeply about such as writing and creating. Read more from the article that inspired this one below:
Teaching just like receiving an “F” or a zero on a paper can literally “suck the life out of you” in the words of Rita Pierson but a “plus two” or being in pursuit of your passions / what you care about can fill you back up a bit.
The dilemma all comes down to having no time to pursue the other things that you love.
The top three for me are: reading, creating and travel.
Everybody needs a little love in their lives but you know what else everybody needs? Play.
You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. —Plato
While in Vang Vieng, Laos, we happened to catch children playing from a far distance. No grown ups present. They climbed through tree roots, explored water, caught fish and laughed a lot. They waded water in the stream made their way out and found a large paint roller and rolled it all around in the dirt. I smiled and reminisced as my nostalgic childhood materialized.
“That’s what play looks and feels like. That’s honoring childhood.” My partner and I started sharing about our childhoods. How we were fortunate that ours looked like the childhood the children were playing in right before our very eyes. Childhood is finite and infinite at the same time. It lives on.
No fences, no dittos, no rules. Freedom. To feel and play. True play gives us a push into being in our body and mind. Everything is connected: spatial awareness to making connections.
Play gives children practice to what they are learning and observing. It works for grown ups too in life, family and business. Want to learn more about your colleagues in less time? Keep it simple. Kick the typical “meeting” and get out there and play.
Play Opens Doors
No matter where children and grown ups live or what they’re overcoming, play is essential.
It opens doors and shows us what we’re capable of and what we’re passionate about. It shows us who we are and are meant to be. We all are competent, capable and creative human beings. From birth until we die, we have to play in our purpose.
Play Promotes Collaboration
Listening and talking. Everyone plays a part in it. From role play / interacting with others to make believe / symbolic thinking. Even without someone else…being able to collaborate with yourself in your own world is the art of meditation. Play is meditation.
Play Gives Grace to Fail and Try, Try Again
Riding a bike to kicking a ball. You ride, you crash. You kick, you miss. You try again.
What did you love to play as a child? As an adult? Did it change? Why?
What were the little things you carried in your pockets before the world made you empty them? Mine literally were rocks and dandelions. I would marvel at a rock as I found it fascinating. I loved and still enjoy collecting rocks. Ultimately, it’s not about the things you buy, it’s about the experiences you have. The moments made into memories. It’s about the little things you care about. Perhaps it keeps you up at night or wakes you up really early in the morning. Perhaps it sits with you for awhile mid-afternoon while you have your tea. It calls out to you. It knows your name without ever having to say it.
When is the last time you noticed or discovered that little thing you care about? When you saw or realized it did you marvel and sit with it for awhile? Were you present in the moment with it? When is the last time you did something about it? No expectations. Not because you have to but because you want to. Not following steps walking into “adulthood” but into “yourself hood” When will you follow your calling? Your own footsteps, left foot, right foot one in front of the other? Not for money but for your soul. Those are the kinds of things that are worth carrying in your pocket. Noticing and fulfilling the little things that you care about are victories.
I remember a little thing. A student of mine wanted to take a worm back to the classroom. So, he put some dirt in his pocket. Then he put the earthworm in his pocket. He carefully sprinkled a bit more dirt on top of the worm in his pocket as well so the worm in his own words would have a home. Think of the care and careful consideration he took to look out for the worm as he fulfilled his mission of bringing it back into our classroom.
If I had interrupted this play and told him to empty his pockets and that a pocket is no place for an earthworm even to transport it then we would have missed out on all of the learning with earthworms, anatomy and how to care for them and how they care for our Earth creating nutrients for plants and other organisms. It started with one worm and turned into so much more.
A worm. A single worm created a moment which created a memory and is in the process of possibly creating an entomologist. We all have an inner child, an inner soul. Nurture it. Nurture the little thing you love and yearn for whether it’s an ant or the sky. You are drawn to it for a reason. When someone asks you why are you “fixated” or “stuck” on something. Ask them, why not? Keep your wonder and your fascination especially in a world that is “stuck” and “fixated” on being busy and moving onto something else before really getting to know and work with what it started with to begin with. Studying and observing earthworms doesn’t take a week or month. For example, Darwin studied earthworms for forty years.
What were the little things you carried in your pockets before the world made you empty them?
Four decades Darwin hung out and observed the worms. So take your time with your passion and purpose, on purpose. The little thing you care about. The little thing that keeps knocking on your brain and on your heart: your soul. It’s worth it. Nurture it, care for it and be there with it for awhile. Sit with it. Walk with it. Crawl with it. Do whatever it is you have to do to be with it for awhile. Keep it safe, give it a home. Put it in your pocket. Take a decade or two or three or four or even more with it. Slow down and move with it in a world that wants to move onto the next thing. It warms. It cools. It warms. It cools. Stay with it for awhile. Savor it like the last bite. In fact, save the best bite for last.
So what is it and what will you do with it?
Ps. Here is a book entitled Finding Me by Viola Davis that may encourage you to dig a little deeper than the earthworms.
Where is your happy place? I hope you have a few of them. As a life-long learner and dreamer, I have the opportunity to travel and live out my dreams of connecting with people from all over the world.
I remember sitting in my Junior year Spanish class when our teacher asked us to draw and dream in Spanish. This was difficult for me to dream in another language but I finally did. My dream then and now was to travel all around the world and connect with people. Deep down, I recognized the important impact of connecting cross-culturally. My dream was and still is all about connection: relationships / community. Something that social media or the meta verse just can’t create in real time or in real life. It may socially influence relationships in both negative and positive ways but it could never replace them or even construct a deep rooted one in real life. Human touch, human feeling, and human thought. It is mere cookie cutter from us…it mirrors our universe but could never fully be us.
We all crave connection. Back then I drew my dream and wrote it out in Spanish, it was a vision that I have the rare opportunity of living out today in real life. I love meeting people and creating long lasting connections that challenge our ways of being, our very existence. There was a time I didn’t know what I knew today. Yesterday is gone, tomorrow never came and today is what we’re living the best way we know how with what we know today.
“Quiero viajar por todo el mundo y conectarme con la gente”. More deeply I realize my dream was and still is about loving each other no matter where we’re from as we all are in a process of becoming. We all have pockets full of dreams and are in the process of realizing them little by little. We’re all walking in the dark and in the light. We’re all here doing what we have to do to fulfill our mission.
We’re all connected as we’re crawling, walking, galloping, skipping, running and flying each other home.
Thank you for your work and working with children and families. Most of all, for caring. I hope your host family cares for you like how you care for them. The definition I found for you is:
An au pair is an unmarried young adult aged 18 to 30 years, who has no children and travels to a foreign country for a defined period of time to live with a host family. … The main purpose of the au pair placement is a cultural exchange, which gives the the au pair an opportunity to improve his or her language skills.
Moreover, The au pair is considered a full member of the family during the temporary period of the au pair stay. As such, he or she helps the family with childcare and can be asked to assume some light household tasks. In return, the host family provides free board and lodging, as well as pocket money. However, the au pair is neither a housekeeper, nor a nanny. Please go here for more: https://www.aupairworld.com/en/wiki/definition-au-pair
Au pairs in the USA must receive a minimum of $195.75 (!!!!!!!!! WTF?) pocket money per week, depending on the specific arrangements made between the host family and the au pair.
But YOU are way more than this. You are so much deeper and more meaningful. You are unseen and unheard. And, it is a cultural exchange program but is it a true exchange of culture and ideas for each and every Au Pair who travels to America? Yes and no. Experiences vastly differ from extremes of really great-good dreams, in-betweens to terrible nightmares. Is it an exchange program or is it low cost nanny service? Come on! This is NOT okay.
If you are an Au Pair living a nightmare as they sold you a pipe dream that you literally paid for just like your host family did, I hope you get justice and get what you truly deserve. You deserve better. I also hope that you get more than 195.74 a week for working 45 hours. I hope you feel like a full member of the family during your temporary stay. Do not be gaslighted and do not be taken advantage. Many Au Pairs are a part of a vulnerable population of American society and are being taken advantage of right before our eyes especially as they are learning a language. Not all Au Pairs (as experiences vastly differ) but many of them and this needs to STOP. It is not okay. Au Pairs are someone’s daughter and/or son, they are someone’s human being! Injustice and unfair treatment needs to change even if their stay is temporary. No one should be taken advantage of. Not like this. Wake up America. Wake up.
From the Playground 