Learning to Have Fun

by Anna

Fun? What is that? Is that when something almost makes me laugh, or for a tiny moment I forget to be a grown-up? I think I may have had some fun when...no, come to think of it, that wasn't really fun.

I have to think very hard to remember the last time I had fun. There are times when I visit the ocean where I feel myself growing calm and reflective, but I'm not really playing. I've forgotten how to play. I've become a grown person with all of the grown-up worries, seriousness, and get to work attitude that comes along with not being a child anymore.

I will try to remember the times that I had fun when I was a child. The first thing I can see is snow. Whenever it snowed and school was called off my siblings and I would head outside to spend the day building snow tunnels or having snowball fights. It was great fun to look up while the snow fell softly on my face. I would close my eyes and when I opened them, little snowflakes were clinging to my eyelashes. I was in awe of how beautiful the snow was after it had built up on the limbs of the trees. It looked like a fairy tale world, with the snow shimmering in the sunlight and sparkling on the ground.

Sleigh riding was great fun. There were so many hills in Colorado and we would have so much fun sleigh riding down those hills. Then would come spring. The sleighs were put away. In our basement you could see eight sleighs hanging on hooks waiting for the next winter's snow. Underneath the sleighs were eight pairs of winter boots. The next winter my mother would tell us all to go and try on the boots to see which ones fit. The older children got new boots and the younger children got the hand-me-downs. I usually got my sister Laura's old boots. I didn't care back then. I just cared about getting out in the snow again. Now that I'm grown and I buy a new pair of shoes or boots, I have to stop and take in the moment. I'm actually getting a new pair of shoes or boots. It feels amazing to me.

In the spring the new leaves would come out on the trees. The robins came back to our backyard. Yellow flowers were everywhere and the dogwood trees were blooming. I loved every season, but the spring time was always so magical to me. When I would climb the old oak in my backyard, and nestle in among the new spring leaves, I felt as if I were a child of the oak tree too. I was a little spring leaf just coming out, soaking up the morning light and feeling the soft breezes. I was born in April, so spring was very special to me.

I used to go to the creek at the bottom of the hill on I grew up on. There was an enchanted forest there. Winding through the woods was a well worn trail that my siblings and I and some of the neighborhood children had blazed. I often pretended that I was Daniel Boone's wife, making it along side him in the wilderness. I had a small hut that I had built with my siblings and I took picnic lunches there. Sometimes I would stay in those woods well past sunset. It was a place of solitude and I felt nurtured beneath the giant oaks and maples.

I spent hours at the creek watching the minnows, crawdads and dragonflies. This simple piece of woods and creek became a beloved part of my childhood and remains with me every day. I once read a chapter of a self-help book that talked about visualizing a safe place in your mind. The places that came to me was the oak tree in my backyard, the creek at the bottom of the street and the church that I used to go to as a child. I feel safe in these places. I feel safe to cry in these places.

My father and his father built a small log cabin in the back yard. My grandfather was a house builder, so it was easy for him to construct a cabin for his grandchildren to play in. The cabin was big enough for all eight of us children to be inside at one time when we were small. I loved that cabin. Surely, Daniel Boone would have loved it too. On the fence just outside of the cabin, grew vines of honeysuckle. When I was in the cabin, I could smell the honeysuckle and it was the sweetest smell in the whole wide world to me. My siblings and I would often pick the honeysuckle and sip the nectar from the blossoms.

My sister Laura and I put up curtains in the windows of our log cabin. We had tea parties in there and sometimes we brought our dinner out to the cabin and ate it. We would put honeysuckles in a small glass and set it on the little table.

My sister Laura and I were more interested in the log cabin than our brothers were. I guess it just wasn't in them to play house as much as we did. My younger brother Tom would sometimes come and have tea with us until he got old enough to know that his older brothers were laughing at him because of it.

Sometimes I would climb onto the roof of the log cabin and just sit there taking in the view of our backyard. In order to get off, I would have to jump from the roof to the ground below. This sometimes scared me, so each time I would say, "One, two, three, promise to God," and then I would have to jump. I could never say "promise to God" and then not do what I was going to do. I always had to do it if I said those words.

I had so much fun in that log cabin. There was only a short time that we were not able to play in the cabin. My sister Laura had gotten two baby rabbits. The person who sold them to her said that the rabbits were both girls. When the rabbits grew up, those two little girl rabbits had a litter of little baby rabbits. My father told my sister that she couldn't keep all of the rabbits in the house, so Laura started to keep them in the log cabin. After a while, the rabbit babies grew up and started to have babies of their own. I don't know how many rabbits ended up being in the log cabin in the end, but I do remember how wild and horrible they all got.

No one wanted to go out and feed the rabbits for fear that they would be bitten. Laura and I were the only ones who ended up feeding them, and we would drop the food in through the windows. Eventually, my father said that we couldn't keep the rabbits in the log cabin anymore. They were making a mess in the cabin, and he said that he was afraid someone would get their fingers bitten off. So, one day when Laura and I went out to the cabin to feed the rabbits, we found that they were all gone. For about a month later, we were eating rabbit every night. I felt kind of bad for the rabbits, but at least we got our old log cabin back.

We had a lot of fun doing all kinds of things when I was little. Running through a sprinkler was great fun for me. A walk in the woods was an adventure. The snow was magical. Each season was wonderful in some way.

There were times that some of my siblings picked on me when I was trying to play, or my parents yelled at us children to shut up if we were making too much noise playing, but we did get quite a bit of play time in.

Now I'm grown. My husband and I go to the beach often. I love to watch the children play in the waves and dig in the sand. Children really know how to be at the ocean. I see them running, jumping and dancing in the water. Their laughter rides the wind like echoes of my childhood.

I walk the beach. That's what adults do. They walk, steady, careful strides, usually with their heads down against the wind. I long to play in the waves, to feel the water rush against my legs, to throw my arms up and laugh, but I just can't. What would people think?

One day when I am old, I will go to the ocean and act like a child. Older people can get away with that, right?

I'm trying to learn to play now. My husband and I need it so much. Little by little, I’m getting it back.