• Home
  • About Melissa
  • Novels
  • Short Stories
  • Events/News
  • Pottery
  • Contact
  • Blog

Melissa Ostrom Author

Melissa Ostrom is the author of The Beloved Wild and other writing

The Good Work of Play

September 3, 2018 By Melissa Ostrom

As I write this September post, August still surrounds me—a humming time. Cicadas drone during the day; katydids chirr after dark. And in the morning, if I move very quietly outside by the Rose-of-Sharons and hollyhocks, a hummingbird will eventually whip past me to dive in and out of the flowers for their nectar, treading air with rapid wings that make a wonderful whir.

My kids’ voices join the late-summer chorus, an under-the-breath murmuring as they add narratives to their play. In the basement, tense Star Wars crises accompany the Lego building. In the living room, plastic ponies, colorful and sweet-faced, argue viciously, make up, then go on journeys to the ocean of the couch or the desert of the coffee table.

But my house will sound empty soon.

School is around the corner. My kids dread it, the sitting for hours, the tests, tests, tests—math tests, social studies exams, spelling quizzes, the horrible looming specter of the state assessments, and the daily trials that come with human interactions. And then there’s homework, that hard-consonant-ending word, punitive and harsh. Oh, how they despise all homework—or think they do.

The fact is, even in the summer when they get to stay in their pjs all day, the kids are never not working. Their play is homework, just work of their own choosing. They’re building, defending, escaping, figuring out (with, significantly, figurines in hand) how to navigate rocky relationships, rehearsing bravery in times of trouble, and practicing independence with imagined travels—trips pointedly never chaperoned by adults.

Of course, the kids like that kind of homework. “That work is fun,” they’d tell me.

My work is fun, too. Over the last ten years, I’ve come to understand that when I’m writing, throwing a pot on the wheel in my studio, cooking, or digging in the flowerbeds—in other words, “working”—I’m really, for the most part, just playing. More recently, I’ve realized that these activities, from making a teapot to composing a story, though they look like unrelated industries, somehow feel the same. They affect me in similar fashions.

They invite me to burrow so deeply into my imagination that, paradoxically, I’m transported, plucked out of the present, removed from myself. In the case of writing, this loss of self-consciousness happens because I’m dwelling in the characters I’ve created. Take Molly Knack, for instance: a freshman in high school and the protagonist of my current project. Every morning by five o’clock, when I return to my work-in-progress, I share that girl’s joys, face her challenges, fear her fears. I become her. I might continue to think about Molly Knack as I cook and garden. Or I might not think at all. Sometimes mindlessness accompanies this transported state—this loss of self-awareness. Pottery definitely does this to me: puts me in that zoned-out zone.

These different activities also overlap in how they rob time of its time-iness. When I’m in the thick of a story—writing or reading it—or fully engaged in another creative activity, I don’t notice the minutes or even the hours flying by. Play exists outside of time, stretches murkily and deeply like a dream, covers a spell that is under a spell, the enchantment of eternity. We may not know we’re in the grips of play until we are made to quit…until someone appears and says, “Oh, my gosh, it’s eight o’clock. We have to go.” What a lovely feeling, losing track of time, existing apart from everyone and everything, being a universe unto oneself. The first stage of throwing a pot—centering—captures this out-of-time quality: it involves bringing the mound so perfectly to the middle of the wheel-head that the spinning clay takes on a startling quality of stillness. A frozen lull in a frantic storm. Static, electric. Controlled but not trapped. Not merely bound. Spellbound.

My favorite activities also share a quality of solitariness that is anything but lonely. While my family sleeps, I sit by myself in the office, during the early-morning quiet, and type away. But I’m not alone. For that period of time, I exist in the world of my characters. Writing, as a whole, is a private endeavor with a very public intention. Writers long for readers. We want to share our stories, entertain, connect. My other hobbies follow a similar inward to outward trajectory. I like to make pots with people in mind, grow flowers so I can pick bouquets to give away, and cook meals that satisfy my family’s and friends’ cravings. These activities that start with me by myself eventually bring me closer to others, give me ways to show gratitude, become vehicles for love.

Finally, every single one of these activities makes me happy. Not that there aren’t bad days—gloomy, uninspired, just-staring-at-the-computer-screen days; hectic, only-making-this-set-of-bowls-because-I-need-the-money days. But usually, when things click and the work, well…works, I’m filled with joy.

I hope my kids find ways to be happy at school this year. I hope they have earnest, sometimes-silly, nurturing, wise teachers. I hope my children make good friends. I hope school doesn’t become an antonym for play. I hope they don’t plod through their lessons afraid, stressed, overwhelmed, wondering anxiously, Will this be on the test? Will I pass the test?

I hope they just do their best and believe me when I tell them that education isn’t—and shouldn’t be—about tests. It’s about learning: growing the mind, staying curious, fueling the imagination, widening notions of what is acceptable, questioning their understanding of what is normal and conceivable, embracing differences, celebrating similarities, remembering to grow gratitude in the heart, expressing that gratitude in words and deeds, and trying. Trying to be kind. Trying to try, to experiment, to not give up.
Learning is the ultimate play. And I hope at least some of their school hours feel like play. Like joy.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Recent Posts

  • Mendable Medium
  • Wending Her Way
  • Real Art
  • Fragments From a Fire
  • Good-Weird

Recent Comments

  • Melissa Ostrom on Wending Her Way
  • Ann Peterson on Wending Her Way
  • Melissa Ostrom on Wending Her Way
  • Alfred Thumser on Wending Her Way
  • Melissa Ostrom on Wending Her Way

Archives

  • March 2025
  • November 2024
  • June 2024
  • February 2024
  • January 2024
  • December 2023
  • October 2023
  • September 2023
  • June 2023
  • April 2023
  • March 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • July 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • June 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • September 2019
  • July 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017