Ah, I'm glad I've refound this lovely piece, Jamie, via your most recent one. I read this a few days ago and it resonated, but I got waylaid before I could respond and then lost track of it. It was one of the pieces that got me thinking about childhood play which I wrote about yesterday. So thank you!
Hello, Wendy! So sorry I'm just seeing this now. I need to check my notification settings!
I'm very glad you found this piece as well, and even more glad that you enjoyed it & got to writing about your own childhood play. Love when a topic spills over and ripples out like that!
Thanks for being here, and sorry for the long time it took me to respond!
No worries, Jamie! I find notifications hard to spot on all but my most pieces; they seem to get "nested" somewhere way back down the queue. The post I wrote about play was:
I was an only child, so I got very good at playing by myself, but I had some friends who would join me. We had a big backyard and I would pretend the garden was a jungle. I also made up stories about the birds I saw and the stray cats in the neighborhood. They had very dramatic lives.
I definitely get the sense of play when I write. I’m currently reading Matt Bell’s book on editing, Refuse to be Done, and his approach to first drafting is all about play and trying new things.
I used to play with my Barbie’s with my sister - I was always Barbie and she was Teresa because she was older and Teresa had brown hair.
We used to make up all types of stories for the Barbie’s, including them being pregnant.
I also had a make believe game with a friend and it was called “the house is on fire” (pretty sure I was traumatized hearing about my family home caught on fire) and we had to save all of our babies.
Other than that, I remember building stick “houses” in mud at school.
Amazing that you made a game out of your house fire trauma. They say play is therapeutic on many levels, but that's a very direct application! (I hope everyone was ok!)
And I also remember stick houses in the mud. We usually called them fairy houses, and decorated them with wilting dandelions and acorn caps filled with what I am sure were poisonous berries plucked from ornamental hedges. When you're a kid - everything is fair game to become part of your play set.
My brother and I would play cards to together. We had $8 in coins that we'd bet back and forth all summer long. He passed away last year and this is a happy memory of a simpler time.💖
I'm so sorry for your loss, Sandra, and I thank you for sharing such a happy memory. You bring to mind all the games my sister and I used to play - cards and chinese jacks and other games. Certainly a simpler time. Such nice memories. Thank you.
Thank you, Jamie. Playing board games, cards, dominoes, Chinese jacks… those were such a huge part of our childhood. As a kid, you never imagine that the things you grew up with will one day disappear, but here we are—everything’s online now! I do wonder what my son will remember as his “good old days” moments. Will it be the virtual games or something else entirely? I guess time will tell.
It is interesting to think about what the younger generations will recall as their childhood games ... Fortnite? 😁 Or maybe kids will still remember blanket forts and playing the-floor-is-lava. You never know!
Jamie, your post brought back a flood of memories. As a kid, I was a master world-builder too. My bedroom was a rotating cast of kingdoms, spaceships, and magical forests. I spent hours lost in those worlds, and I think a part of me still lives there. It's true what they say about growing up – somewhere along the way, we trade imagination for "responsibility." Your newsletter is a reminder that we don't have to lose that spark.
Thank you for the nudge to rediscover my inner playfulness.
I am delighted if this post inspired you to rediscover your inner playfulness. That's what it's all about, right? It's a tough part of growing up that we have to sacrifice our imagination on the altar of grown-up responsibility. But I think, sometimes, that we give up too much too easily. Reclaim those kingdoms, spaceships, and magical forests. They are still there. Just waiting for you!
Wow, those images are amazing! I, too, had breyer horses and built a barn for them out of an orange crate! Lol! I kind of wish I had kept it... when I was a kid I used to sew and spend a lot of time doing craft projects. For a long time I made Waldorf dolls and was trying to make them traditional outfits from different countries. And of course my sister and I would pack up our Playmobil dolls and "go west" or sail them in boats down our stream. Such fun!
Of course you had Breyer horses! 💜 And an orange crate must have made an awesome barn. Mine lived on the built-in shelves in my bedroom ... hay and all! ;) I'd forgotten about Playmobil! And a stream is probably the best play area a kid can have ... SO many options for adventures (including Pooh Sticks!). Thanks so much for sharing. xo
As a child, I played “boarding school” (I learned about boarding when my parents wanted to send me to a girls only school and the brochure/prospectus had photos of girls in older grades who were boarders (elementary didn’t have boarding). I thought it was so cool (I was 5 at the time). I’d wear a kilt and since I already had a desk in my room, pretended that I did homework like one of the big kids. My stuffed animals were my roommates. This was a few years before I was watching Facts of Life reruns after school (I didn’t end up going to the school my parents wanted me in until middle school. As a day girl). And since I was into Little House, I’d also play Pioneer Teacher. I had a long skirt made from an old duvet cover for it!
Oh my goodness, Cynthia! You just reminded me of all the different games my sister and I played around boarding school and having school for our stuffed animals and also being governesses on old English estates ... very Dickensian, or maybe more Jane Austen. And I can just picture your Pioneer Teacher skirt ... I'm pretty sure I had one just like it made out of an old quilt! Thanks so much ... that was a fun trip down memory lane!
I love this! What an imaginative time and sounds like you and Nikki had a blast! Hours of fun too :) What comes to my mind when I was a kid was when I would go to my grandparents for the summer. They didn't have TV or radio and lived in the country. I would sit in the gravel driveway and hunt for Indian beads for hours. These weren't really Native Indian artifacts but instead were a colloquial term for fossilized crinoid stem segments.
I had never heard of "fossilized crinoid stem segments," so I Googled, and those are AMAZING! What little pieces of magic! We didn't have anything as cool as that where I grew up, but your memory reminded me how I used to play in our gravel driveway after a rainstorm ... and the rain would make a miniature river that tumbled over all the small rocks and I could float leaf boats down (though they never went far). Fossilized crinoid stem segments, though ... wow. Love that. Thanks so much for sharing! :)
I had a ton of Breyer horses, and the dolls that rode them. My grandparents built me a barn, teeny rope halters, and hay bales made of foam and Easter grass. I made up whole entire worlds with them, and sometimes my brother played. We had an ongoing story line, and his rider was called Twofinger because before I got the second doll, it was his fingers made into a “person”😆.
We also played Town with my cousins in their back yard. Town was HUGE and always being worked on. We had cars, trucks, and all the Tonka ever made. Buildings were rocks that we searched out specifically, and we did landscaping with pebbles and weeds, made fences with sticks, every kind of thing. Roads, driveways, parking lots, whatever we thought of. We were massive developers.
Love all of this, Shelly! I, of course, also had my own collection of Breyer horses. I still have a few of them, actually ... and I still remember their names: Beauty and Ginger and Prince Jack. I love "Twofinger" - that's a classic. And I love how you and your cousins had an ongoing world-building game. Fabulous stuff! Thanks so much for sharing.
Love this article. My little writer brain was at work when I used to create pretend play with sibling and neighbors. I wish I would've written them down. The drive way was the black hole and you could get lost in space lol. We would build forts with whatever was around.
So. Many. Forts. Right? And I love that your imaginative landscape included black holes. There was a movie called The Black Hole back in the day, and it had the cutest robots ever ... well, until wall-e, I guess. ;)
That’s fantastic - you two were so creative! As a child, I loved playing with dolls, and cars, and animal figurines. I loved Barbies especially. I had a sister 4 years younger so she was my playmate most of my childhood. When I think of playing for some reason I immediately find myself at my Nanas house. She had a bin of toys we’d have all over the floor, building pens for the animals with dominos and houses with Lincoln logs. When I think of Barbies I think of being too old for them but still playing with them with my sister because I “had” to (but really I just loved to). I don't think I’ve ever stopped playing and I think in part it’s because of the birth of my brother when I turned 20. Then my nephew at 30. When my friends had children or grandchildren I was the one playing in the floor with the kids while the adults talked. I don’t have children or grandchildren of my own, but now I play with my great niece. Thanks for the memories!
Oh! Your story about building pens for the animals with dominos and houses with Lincoln logs brought back such memories! I also remember using the patterns in an oriental rug to design miniature cities and towns ... establishing borders along different swirls and other design elements.
How nice that you have had so many younger people in your life to help you continue learning to play. Other than my daughter (who is 20 now!), I haven't had many children in my life. I did, however, get to visit my beau's young grandkids recently, and boy-oh-boy did they remind me of the joy and chaos of play at that age! ;)
We lived in a rural area, so my friend Cindy and I were our own "neighborhood." We walked to and from school together and spent a great deal of time together outside of school. We read books and based much of our play on the characters we loved. We built "houses" in the woods and dressed up in cast-off clothes and shoes we kept in a sagging black gladstone bag. When we weren't personally playing the parts, we cast our Ginny and Jill dolls in the roles. We once needed a boat for our story and tried to build one from rocks my dad had gathered for a project, but I dropped one of them on my finger, so we had to switch our focus and play hospital instead! I cannot imagine adult life without that background of play and imagination. I must admit that, seventy years later, it's not so easy to slip into that mindset! I don't play as often as I should, but I still remember how!
A boat made of rocks. I love that. And I love how quickly you and Cindy adapted your play to the situation, even one that involved personal injury. Yikes!
The play mindset is so hard to come by as an adult. I suppose there are just too many things on our minds. It becomes really hard to just let go of reality and drop into a world of your own imagining.
Ah, I'm glad I've refound this lovely piece, Jamie, via your most recent one. I read this a few days ago and it resonated, but I got waylaid before I could respond and then lost track of it. It was one of the pieces that got me thinking about childhood play which I wrote about yesterday. So thank you!
Hello, Wendy! So sorry I'm just seeing this now. I need to check my notification settings!
I'm very glad you found this piece as well, and even more glad that you enjoyed it & got to writing about your own childhood play. Love when a topic spills over and ripples out like that!
Thanks for being here, and sorry for the long time it took me to respond!
No worries, Jamie! I find notifications hard to spot on all but my most pieces; they seem to get "nested" somewhere way back down the queue. The post I wrote about play was:
https://wendyvarley.substack.com/p/in-praise-of-playing-out
I was an only child, so I got very good at playing by myself, but I had some friends who would join me. We had a big backyard and I would pretend the garden was a jungle. I also made up stories about the birds I saw and the stray cats in the neighborhood. They had very dramatic lives.
I definitely get the sense of play when I write. I’m currently reading Matt Bell’s book on editing, Refuse to be Done, and his approach to first drafting is all about play and trying new things.
Hello, Kate. I'm SO sorry I'm only seeing your comment now. I clearly need to check my notification settings.
Thank you for sharing your favorite playtime. I love that you made up stories about the birds and stray cats. Natural storyteller, eh?
I will have to look up that book - I've never heard of it, but it sounds intriguing. Thanks for the recommendation ... and for being here!
I used to play with my Barbie’s with my sister - I was always Barbie and she was Teresa because she was older and Teresa had brown hair.
We used to make up all types of stories for the Barbie’s, including them being pregnant.
I also had a make believe game with a friend and it was called “the house is on fire” (pretty sure I was traumatized hearing about my family home caught on fire) and we had to save all of our babies.
Other than that, I remember building stick “houses” in mud at school.
Amazing that you made a game out of your house fire trauma. They say play is therapeutic on many levels, but that's a very direct application! (I hope everyone was ok!)
And I also remember stick houses in the mud. We usually called them fairy houses, and decorated them with wilting dandelions and acorn caps filled with what I am sure were poisonous berries plucked from ornamental hedges. When you're a kid - everything is fair game to become part of your play set.
Yeah everyone was okay! I was in the hospital being chronically altered and my family was out! Just the stuff was gone
Still a terrible thing to go through, but very glad to hear everyone was ok!!
My brother and I would play cards to together. We had $8 in coins that we'd bet back and forth all summer long. He passed away last year and this is a happy memory of a simpler time.💖
I'm so sorry for your loss, Sandra, and I thank you for sharing such a happy memory. You bring to mind all the games my sister and I used to play - cards and chinese jacks and other games. Certainly a simpler time. Such nice memories. Thank you.
Thank you, Jamie. Playing board games, cards, dominoes, Chinese jacks… those were such a huge part of our childhood. As a kid, you never imagine that the things you grew up with will one day disappear, but here we are—everything’s online now! I do wonder what my son will remember as his “good old days” moments. Will it be the virtual games or something else entirely? I guess time will tell.
It is interesting to think about what the younger generations will recall as their childhood games ... Fortnite? 😁 Or maybe kids will still remember blanket forts and playing the-floor-is-lava. You never know!
Jamie, your post brought back a flood of memories. As a kid, I was a master world-builder too. My bedroom was a rotating cast of kingdoms, spaceships, and magical forests. I spent hours lost in those worlds, and I think a part of me still lives there. It's true what they say about growing up – somewhere along the way, we trade imagination for "responsibility." Your newsletter is a reminder that we don't have to lose that spark.
Thank you for the nudge to rediscover my inner playfulness.
I am delighted if this post inspired you to rediscover your inner playfulness. That's what it's all about, right? It's a tough part of growing up that we have to sacrifice our imagination on the altar of grown-up responsibility. But I think, sometimes, that we give up too much too easily. Reclaim those kingdoms, spaceships, and magical forests. They are still there. Just waiting for you!
Wow, those images are amazing! I, too, had breyer horses and built a barn for them out of an orange crate! Lol! I kind of wish I had kept it... when I was a kid I used to sew and spend a lot of time doing craft projects. For a long time I made Waldorf dolls and was trying to make them traditional outfits from different countries. And of course my sister and I would pack up our Playmobil dolls and "go west" or sail them in boats down our stream. Such fun!
Of course you had Breyer horses! 💜 And an orange crate must have made an awesome barn. Mine lived on the built-in shelves in my bedroom ... hay and all! ;) I'd forgotten about Playmobil! And a stream is probably the best play area a kid can have ... SO many options for adventures (including Pooh Sticks!). Thanks so much for sharing. xo
As a child, I played “boarding school” (I learned about boarding when my parents wanted to send me to a girls only school and the brochure/prospectus had photos of girls in older grades who were boarders (elementary didn’t have boarding). I thought it was so cool (I was 5 at the time). I’d wear a kilt and since I already had a desk in my room, pretended that I did homework like one of the big kids. My stuffed animals were my roommates. This was a few years before I was watching Facts of Life reruns after school (I didn’t end up going to the school my parents wanted me in until middle school. As a day girl). And since I was into Little House, I’d also play Pioneer Teacher. I had a long skirt made from an old duvet cover for it!
Oh my goodness, Cynthia! You just reminded me of all the different games my sister and I played around boarding school and having school for our stuffed animals and also being governesses on old English estates ... very Dickensian, or maybe more Jane Austen. And I can just picture your Pioneer Teacher skirt ... I'm pretty sure I had one just like it made out of an old quilt! Thanks so much ... that was a fun trip down memory lane!
Thanks, Jamie; this article took me down the memories lane (such a long time ago)
I wish I had some photographs to share 😕
I do still play for the sake of playing (with my niece)
Thank you for being here, Jana. I'm so glad to have sparked some memories, and I wish you had some photos, too. :) xo
I love this! What an imaginative time and sounds like you and Nikki had a blast! Hours of fun too :) What comes to my mind when I was a kid was when I would go to my grandparents for the summer. They didn't have TV or radio and lived in the country. I would sit in the gravel driveway and hunt for Indian beads for hours. These weren't really Native Indian artifacts but instead were a colloquial term for fossilized crinoid stem segments.
I had never heard of "fossilized crinoid stem segments," so I Googled, and those are AMAZING! What little pieces of magic! We didn't have anything as cool as that where I grew up, but your memory reminded me how I used to play in our gravel driveway after a rainstorm ... and the rain would make a miniature river that tumbled over all the small rocks and I could float leaf boats down (though they never went far). Fossilized crinoid stem segments, though ... wow. Love that. Thanks so much for sharing! :)
I had a ton of Breyer horses, and the dolls that rode them. My grandparents built me a barn, teeny rope halters, and hay bales made of foam and Easter grass. I made up whole entire worlds with them, and sometimes my brother played. We had an ongoing story line, and his rider was called Twofinger because before I got the second doll, it was his fingers made into a “person”😆.
We also played Town with my cousins in their back yard. Town was HUGE and always being worked on. We had cars, trucks, and all the Tonka ever made. Buildings were rocks that we searched out specifically, and we did landscaping with pebbles and weeds, made fences with sticks, every kind of thing. Roads, driveways, parking lots, whatever we thought of. We were massive developers.
Love all of this, Shelly! I, of course, also had my own collection of Breyer horses. I still have a few of them, actually ... and I still remember their names: Beauty and Ginger and Prince Jack. I love "Twofinger" - that's a classic. And I love how you and your cousins had an ongoing world-building game. Fabulous stuff! Thanks so much for sharing.
Oh, and my barbies had their own dramas lol
Oh - the Barbies had drama alright ... precursor to today's reality TV shows.
Love this article. My little writer brain was at work when I used to create pretend play with sibling and neighbors. I wish I would've written them down. The drive way was the black hole and you could get lost in space lol. We would build forts with whatever was around.
So. Many. Forts. Right? And I love that your imaginative landscape included black holes. There was a movie called The Black Hole back in the day, and it had the cutest robots ever ... well, until wall-e, I guess. ;)
That’s fantastic - you two were so creative! As a child, I loved playing with dolls, and cars, and animal figurines. I loved Barbies especially. I had a sister 4 years younger so she was my playmate most of my childhood. When I think of playing for some reason I immediately find myself at my Nanas house. She had a bin of toys we’d have all over the floor, building pens for the animals with dominos and houses with Lincoln logs. When I think of Barbies I think of being too old for them but still playing with them with my sister because I “had” to (but really I just loved to). I don't think I’ve ever stopped playing and I think in part it’s because of the birth of my brother when I turned 20. Then my nephew at 30. When my friends had children or grandchildren I was the one playing in the floor with the kids while the adults talked. I don’t have children or grandchildren of my own, but now I play with my great niece. Thanks for the memories!
Oh! Your story about building pens for the animals with dominos and houses with Lincoln logs brought back such memories! I also remember using the patterns in an oriental rug to design miniature cities and towns ... establishing borders along different swirls and other design elements.
How nice that you have had so many younger people in your life to help you continue learning to play. Other than my daughter (who is 20 now!), I haven't had many children in my life. I did, however, get to visit my beau's young grandkids recently, and boy-oh-boy did they remind me of the joy and chaos of play at that age! ;)
Thanks for being here and sharing your memories!
We lived in a rural area, so my friend Cindy and I were our own "neighborhood." We walked to and from school together and spent a great deal of time together outside of school. We read books and based much of our play on the characters we loved. We built "houses" in the woods and dressed up in cast-off clothes and shoes we kept in a sagging black gladstone bag. When we weren't personally playing the parts, we cast our Ginny and Jill dolls in the roles. We once needed a boat for our story and tried to build one from rocks my dad had gathered for a project, but I dropped one of them on my finger, so we had to switch our focus and play hospital instead! I cannot imagine adult life without that background of play and imagination. I must admit that, seventy years later, it's not so easy to slip into that mindset! I don't play as often as I should, but I still remember how!
A boat made of rocks. I love that. And I love how quickly you and Cindy adapted your play to the situation, even one that involved personal injury. Yikes!
The play mindset is so hard to come by as an adult. I suppose there are just too many things on our minds. It becomes really hard to just let go of reality and drop into a world of your own imagining.
Good thing to practice though. ;) xo