The Precious Gift of Child’s Play
When I was a young child, a huge old willow tree toppled into our back yard from the neighbor’s yard behind us. It fell as the result of a hurricane that hit the East Coast in the 1950's.
The dense branches of the tree missed our house by mere inches. The entire back yard was a tangle of thick, green willow.
A jungle! Or so my brother and I shouted with delight. For weeks, (or maybe it was just days. Time is vague when viewed through childhood lenses), my brothers and I explored this sudden miracle.
We pushed through the thick branches, pretending to be Tarzan, always on the look out for lions, tigers, giant tarantulas and snakes. Hour after hour we lived this fantasy with no thought of watching television, eating, or stopping to rest.
Because we were children we spent not a moment worrying about this fallen tree clogging up the yard. That was an adult concern.
And this is the great gift of childhood. Being able to play happily in the moment.
Sometimes as adults we grow impatient with children who don’t seem to understand the seriousness of adulthood. For example, children almost universally enjoy jumping in piles of Autumn leaves, throwing the leaves about, oblivious to the hard work some adult did to make that leaf pile.
