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At the beginning of the year, when I was in Berlin, I’d periodically walk through a local park to think and get some exercise. One particular walk was after a snowfall that had left patches of ice along the paths. Moving carefully, almost tiptoeing my way around, I found myself smiling as I watched toddlers being pulled on wooden sledges by their parents, and small children chasing each other with snowballs.
There was something about watching them play that made me feel both an unexpected jolt of delight and a little envious. I couldn’t recall the last time I had felt the sense of timelessness and free-spirited abandon that is infused in children’s playtime. Feelings that I had experienced not only as a child but at times in my adult life when I was a bit more carefree, especially after college and through my twenties.
The closest memories I could conjure were trips hiking with friends through the Montana mountains or cross-country skiing outside Seattle. Things that made me feel so alive and spirited.
Watching those children that morning last month has made me think about how rarely I use the word “play” in reference to my own life. I wonder if we all could use more of it, even the most serious and accomplished of us. And how we might reimagine it in our own grown-up lives.
The 20th-century Danish painter Peter Hansen seems also to have been taken by a view of children playing. His 1907-08 work “Playing Children, Enghave Square” depicts a line of girls swaying forwards with linked hands towards the girls opposite them. Their bodies are fully engaged in motion, their faces contorted in pleasure or uncertainty. Above them verdant leaves create small canopies against a backdrop of buildings whose windows look on to the square.
In the moment of play, the world seemingly belongs to these children, and their only focus is to negotiate their interactions with one another, enjoying the sense of freedom.
I am a social person. I go out with friends. I have people over for meals. But that kind of socialising doesn’t have the curious childlike, “open to anything” aspect of many forms of play, and that’s something I’d like to resurrect: times when I actively seek to lose myself in an activity purely for the fun of it. Preferably a physical activity, not reading or visiting a museum, as much as I love those things.
I suspect that if we as adults figured out ways to incorporate more play into our lives, we might experience fewer periods of sustained stress, less irritability and more enjoyable experiences in our relationships. Play reminds us that to engage with others and the world is a joyful gift.
I love the slightly odd painting “Naked Women Playing Checkers” (1897) by the Swiss-French artist Félix Vallotton. It shows two young women playing checkers on a green-carpeted floor. One woman has her legs spread in front of the checkerboard as she gazes down, observing the moves of her opponent, who is crouching with one hand across her lap. We are at their level, but we can’t see their faces and they, immersed in the game, seem oblivious to the viewer.
It is strange to me that Vallotton chose to paint the women naked. But I also see a sense to it, regardless of his intentions: to play does require one to have one’s guard down, a vulnerability that could be symbolised by nakedness and exposure. We all know what it feels like to not get picked to play a game. We also know that sometimes we might get physically hurt while playing. In this sense, playtime can be an occasion for rejection and for wounding.
And yet we also all know that there are times of play in which our joy or pleasure cannot be controlled or contained. When we relinquish the grasp on our curated and disciplined social selves in order to be present, giving ourselves over to whomever we might become. Play provides us with opportunities to free ourselves from our worries about how we are perceived or how we are performing.
British artist Philip Reinagle’s 1805 painting “Portrait of an Extraordinary Musical Dog” might seem purely comical, perhaps a satire on the musical child prodigies of the time. But I include it here because I love the seeming silliness of it, and the audacity of imagination it requires to paint such a serious portrait of such an improbable experience.
An element of how we play should be about widening our imagination to allow a heightened level of ridiculousness back into our lives. To do whatever makes us laugh, to participate in what responsible sensibilities might deem foolish behaviour. We play not for recognition nor to please others. We play to release ourselves back towards a posture of delight, curiosity, joy and engagement with those around us and the world at large.
Email Enuma at enuma.okoro@ft.com or follow her on X @EnumaOkoro
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