learning to play again (it’s okay to forget how)

"we [artists] are childlike, not childish." – Julia Cameron

1. I’m learning how to play again. (We forget sometimes—it’s okay if you forgot too).

2. I have been going to creeks with friends and giggling that giggle filled with God that comes when you jump into a cold body of water and it electrifies you.

I have been reaching for my guitar to practice during the 3 minutes that my kettle comes to a boil. And afterwards, I find myself stringing some more chords together and humming an affirmation to myself, never ever having been drawn to songwriting and yet finding myself dabbling in it, in my own weird little way.

I have been baking loaf cakes off a whim with whatever I have in the pantry and eyeballing ingredients and eating 1 slice with every meal. The next goal is to make an elaborate tiered, frosted cake for myself, and/or this beet chocolate cake recipe that I think will taste like sweet earth, like a gnome’s favorite dessert. I will do it to remind myself that any day can be a special occasion and that I too deserve that level of intention and care.

I have been packing up dinner in my thermos that my mom used to pack my elementary school lunches in and taking it to the park to eat on weeknights with a tiny camp spork because my inner child demands it and we watch the sunset together. On Tuesday, my best friend and I brought strawberries and fresh whipped cream with us. I do it because I don’t want to just live for my weekends. I want to live for my random weekdays and infuse romance and treats into a Wednesday evening because I can.

I have been taking my visual journal/sketchbook with me everywhere I go like I used to as a kid and like I did during my study abroad in Copenhagen. My craft scissors and my glue stick becoming as much a staple as my tinted chapstick and car keys. It changes the way you relate to the world. Your bag suddenly becomes filled with wrappers, business cards, tickets, flowers for pressing—all in the name of the art form that is documentation mixed with collage mixed with journaling. You’re creating a sacred artifact that captures moments in time. You’re slowing time down and connecting to your physical environment. I highly recommend it.

3. It feels so good to be doing this all right as summer rolls around. Like I too am starting my summer break and we just blasted School’s Out in the car on the way home before stopping at Baskin Robbin’s and getting two scoops of Jamoca Coffee on a cake cone.

4. The gentle bloom of summer feels imminent, more so than I think I ever have in the past. Do you feel it too? The effortless unfurling of our petals alongside the cloudless blue LA sky that feels fake sometimes, like a standing backdrop on a movie set.

The truth is, I’m quite shocked at the softness because it feels drastically different from the straining and growing bud that I felt this spring. Spring can be like that—it’s a liminal season whereas summer is a bookend season, and the liminal can be uncomfortable as we know. We felt the discomfort as our buds were nearly about to burst and now we have broken through to the other side and there’s a deep sigh in that. A big exhale as we begin our soft unraveling and start to perfume the air with our essence.

5. Summer knows play very well.

And play does not know the word should.

6. There is, of course, still an initial reluctance present in my play that I must acknowledge. It is that secret, sneaky resistance that is always a small mountain to get over. It happens when I turn on music and I awkwardly sway my body around feeling a lil weird until something invisible clicks in. Suddenly, the notes are coursing through your shoulders and your elbow and your knees and your thighs, up through your pelvis and into your chest, filling your throat up so much that you have to toss your head back in pleasure.

7. Play is release.

That little mountain, which feels like an internal clench, is what so many of us don’t get past and why so many adults don’t know how to play anymore. Play can be fucking awkward at first, just like how the first 10 minutes of writing can feel like a major flop. You just have to get over it and let go of the grasping onto how this should be going or all that we should be doing instead. Just ride it out. Play knows it can trust that.

8. Play is remembering that we can choose pleasure whenever we want to.

I can choose to notice this exact moment of me pulling these words out of my psyche and stringing them along and realize, oh, I am enjoying this particular moment. Don’t tell me to enjoy the process—rather, tell me to enjoy that particular brushstroke, or the feeling of blending my paints with my palette knife. Tell me to enjoy the intricacies of my craft, like the discovery of the perfect adjective as it dances into my mind and I thank my fairies for the generous inspiration.

9. Play is honest expression.

It is uncontrollably krumping (tbt) because the food tastes so good and making your friend laugh and knowing they are seeing exactly what excited baby Kris would’ve also done years ago.

10. Play is nourishment.

We can be so committed to building the lives that we desire (bravo by the way) that we forget to nourish. We can be so committed to soul-aligned projects that we justify the unsustainable work ethic in the name of ‘alignment.’ Just because your soul is excited about it doesn’t mean you should rush to create it in an unsustainable way that depletes you. It will come to fruition. Do it in a nourishing way that helps you create more of whatever it is, rather than burning yourself out. Play along the way gives your train fuel to keep chugging along.

11. Play refills our cup.

The medicine we need is sometimes fucking around and getting inspired and doing things that don’t feel productive but really are. The irony is often that the more unproductive the play, the more unintentional productivity ends up seeping into your creative projects/life.

12. Play holds transformational power.

When we’re angry for no reason because it’s one of those days and we turn on Animal Crossing music and start cackling to ourselves because we simply can’t be angry with this little fuckin cutie bop on—we’re getting better at play. In fact we’re using it as a powerful tool—one that helps us release whatever needs releasing and connects us to that childlike part of ourselves that only knows the present moment.

13. “We [artists] are childlike, not childish.” – Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way

Love you! Go play now <3

Kristen xo