Probably not. Unless you're a teacher, or between the ages of five and eighteen, life in June, July, and August is not that different from life in March, April, and May (thermostat readings notwithstanding). Yes, while school refugees everywhere are staying up late, sleeping in, hanging out at the pool, going to the movies, and unleashing their inner Rock Star, the rest of us are reporting for duty as usual. There we sit, slogging away at our desks...pushing paper, reading e-mails, meeting deadlines, solving problems...then we head home to make supper, clean the kitchen, go to sleep, and do it all over again.
And they wonder why grown-ups get depressed.
For years, I've been saying that SOMEBODY (you know SOMEBODY; her to-do list is endless and never seems to get done) needs to invent a playground for adults. Who decided that only 5-year-olds like to swing and slide? Who says 50-year-olds don’t need to romp and play as much as toddlers? Frankly, I’m thinking there’s a big connection between midlife crises and the complete absence of PLAY in our lives.
And, no, watching football and going fishing doesn’t count. Playing Rock Star and video games might, if we didn’t have to try so hard not to look like dweebs in front of our children. No, I’m talking about a good, old-fashioned, outdoor playground with grown-up sized merry-go-rounds, seesaws, jungle gyms, and forts. I’m betting an hour a day at the playground could eliminate half the medications prescribed to people over forty and all of the stress responsible for our ever-bleaker outlook on life.
Actually, SOMEBODY in Europe realized my idea is a great one and has done something about it. The Santa Claus Sports Institute in Rovaniemi, Finland, built just such a playground and tested it out on forty adults between the ages of 65 and 81. All experienced significant improvements in balance, speed and co-ordination after just three months; one observer noted he’d never heard so much laughter. Germany and England have adult playgrounds as well. To be fair, there’ve been a few feeble efforts to develop playgrounds for grown-ups in the U.S., but they’ve been presented as “adult gyms” and “team building exercises.” Bah humbug! If you turn me loose in a bouncy castle, I don’t want to bond with my colleagues; I want to BOUNCE! And we need more fancy gyms about as much as we need more banks and drugstores: just stick a giant slide on an empty downtown lot and let the healing begin!
Don’t you remember how fabulous it used to feel to pump harder and harder and then throw back your head and kick out your feet and fly up into the sky? Rocking chair: not the same. Front porch swing: not the same. Gotta be a swing set swing. And rowing machine at the gym or pirate ship at the park? What would you choose? Arrrrrr.
So SOMEBODY out there with money, get to work! The grownups of America are turning into grumpy, old, out-of-shape geezers, and we don’t need drugs to fix us—we need PLAYTIME! Maybe your home improvement project this month should be a treehouse instead of a new deck. Or maybe instead of taking a computer class, you should take saxophone lessons. Why not? You have the rest of your life to be responsible; my advice for coping with all the economic gloom and doom is to cut loose your inner child. Treat yourself to some PLAYTIME for a few weeks and see if your mental health (not to mention your physical health) doesn't vastly improve.
Here’s your summer assignment:
1) Go buy a can of Play-doh and SQUISH it.
2) Go buy a bottle of bubble liquid, sit on your front steps, and blow bubbles EVERYWHERE.
3) Go buy a box of colored chalk and draw pictures on your sidewalk.
4) Go buy a box of popsicles to use as rewards for a job well done.
5) Lie down and watch the clouds go by for at least ten minutes.
6) Take a bubble bath instead of a shower one day. Men, too! Men, especially! (You might even throw in a couple of toys or soap crayons.)
7) Play in the rain, or have a water gun fight, or a hose fight.
8) Use colored markers or crayons instead of a pen when you write out to-do lists and other notes.
9) Visit a playground after hours, when the kiddies are all gone. You might not FIT anything anymore but, then again, you might!
10) If you really want to go for broke, try reading or writing a little poetry!
You’ll be a happier, healthier person when fall rolls around, I promise.
