From Pretending in Play to Real Life Each Day

Swimming before real life.

Pretending was fun, before real life began. Allen wheeled his big sprayer truck in the dirt lane and parked below the house. Climbing out of his truck, he paused and watched us, amused.

“What are you girls doing?” my brother asked.

Gasping for air, we told him we are “saving people”. “We are pretending that there was a big flood and we are the only ones who can swim and bring people to safety.” we said.

“Yes, and the trees are high apartments and we have to rescue the people who are still stuck there!” Rachel added.” 

I suppose we thought he’d be intrigued, for most times when folks asked us what we were playing, they seemed to enjoy our imagination. Not Allen. 

He shook his head and said, “Don’t you know that children who play like this go crazy when they are older?”

Allen grabbed his dusty lunch bucket from the truck, strode to the cellar door, and went inside.  Rachel and I looked at each other. We just shook out heads and “swam” back out the lane to rescue more people.

The east side of the lane was lined with trees from what we called the Bender woods, because they belonged to Bill Bender. He was a distant relative and didn’t mind if we traipsed through his woods. This time, though, we merely used the lane and pretended that the tall trees were high-rise apartments or houses in some town of our imagination. Folks were stranded in their apartments because of flooding, and it was up to us to rescue them!

Obstacles for the win

For some reason, our play was more fun when we had obstacles to cross. We deliberately planned our play so that we were  heroes of the day.  That’s why the boats we used had no motors.  How else would we need to swim to rescue people if the boats had motors?! The imaginary boats were strapped to our waists as we swam to the apartments and waited for people to come get into our boats. We called encouraging words to them as they stepped into our boats before we “swam” back across the waters to safety. Once there, we unloaded our passengers and swam back to rescue more.

It’s funny now when I think back on the fact that neither of us were good swimmers. Our only experience was in the Casselman River that shared frogs and tadpoles – and sometimes snakes – among the rocks. The river’s water barely reached our shoulders after a rain. Yet, here we were, moving our arms in strong breast strokes and moving our legs in rhythm to bring people to safety. I wonder how many times we swam in and out the lane and how many lives we saved in our play.

After our play, it’s no wonder we were tired and didn’t complain when bedtime came. That night, I thought about Allen’s warning after I snuggled in bed. So what, I told myself as I drifted off to sleep, I don’t care if I do get crazy when I am older. I’m having too much fun to worry about that now. If I do go crazy, I won’t know it – and I wouldn’t have missed the fun playing, either.

Real Life

Now, Allen is gone, and with him his teasing. We disliked it then, and we miss it now. Deep down, I knew Allen was a master at jokes. I decided if he was really that concerned, he would not smile like he did. For certain, the amusement in his eyes would be absent as he stood there with his lunch bucket, watching his sisters play.

We are older now, and we’re still sane (I think). We can no longer “swim” in and out the dirt lane.  Rachel and I still manage to do things together.  Instead of pretending, we face real obstacles. Now, instead of saving lives, we’re growing older together and making the moments count. We don’t need imaginations, because cancer and chemo are cruel enough. We don’t play together like we did, but we still need and help each other.  

Instead of swimming out the dirt lane at our homeplace, we travel miles to work and play together. Our home place has changed, and so have we. Yet, the memories of laughter and play are some of the most cherished ones we have today. Our pretending in play helps us as we walk real life today.

 

 

Photo credit: pixabay.com