A STATE OF CALMING PLAY

Mother Joanne Tarasuik loves exploring nature with her son Harrison, who is four years old.

Oftentimes, we are looking close up at our lives. Like a painter with a big canvas, we are deeply concentrated on the detail. We spy imperfections, parts to be changed and altered. Yet, upon standing back, getting a new viewpoint, the beauty of creating something afresh appears. Perspectives, both here and beyond, remind us, and gift us, with what it is we need. Moments of play and calm.

Diving into the sea, salt and cold merge to renew. The fragrance of a plant transports you back to your own childhood. Freshly made toast lets you know someone is home. Basking in the morning sun with an expanse of time ahead of you. Kicking the footy with a friend, all movement and laughter. Painting in the great outdoors. A moment of immersion, following a child at play. These acts in the sensory world, allow us moments away from thoughts, from ourselves and our obligationsto be. In the moment. In a state of play.

Children, they inhabit this world, eager and enthusiastic. They put the brakes on speed, stopping to examine and wonder the smaller fragments of the world. They implore us: look, listen and feel. For the times they challenge, they reward. The way their affection is always close, the way music is in them and how stories never get old. So much of what gives life meaning is located in these seemingly small moments of play.

Together they live in the Mornington Peninsula with Jo’s Mum. Seemingly simple things connect them. A wander to the playground, takeaway coffee, searching for imaginary Pokémon characters in their local area, eating fish and chips together.

Jo said they are drawn to the beach, especially in the Wintertime.

“It’s amazing when you walk on the beach, how things seem easier. Whether it’s the smell of the salt water or the sound of the waves or the fact that you can’t see any cars or buildings, I don’t know but everything is easier. You just focus on each other- and nature.”

Jo observes the ways that nature allows them to become immersed, how nature “gets our imaginations flowing.”

Often they find representations of other things in their surrounds. New meanings reveal themselves and they create new ways of thinking. Jo tells the story of Harrison and a few local boys. They dammed the part where the rainwater goes out into the bay. “Little engineers,” she said with a smile.

In the great outdoors, the play possibilities are wide-open and Jo continues to watch her son wander into those new spaces, seeing things from his point of view and from her own.

May Morshedy has a 2-and-a-half-year-old son and seven-year-old daughter. She finds herself increasingly seeking out green spaces to reconnect with herself and her family.

“There is something magical and transformative about a child’s perspective and how it connects you to your inner child. My toddler’s excitement about a trip to the zoo, for example, never seems to fade. While strolling through those long bamboo trees and watching animals play and eat- it can be quite spiritual, experiencing that through my child makes it even more enjoyable and calming.”

May has created play spaces in her home and outdoors that encourage imagination and creativity. She enjoys hearing her daughter on the piano and is moved by her son’s artistic expression. Her children remind her of old passions she had as a child. They are still alive within her and she pulls them closer. She longs to write and read more. She endeavours to carve out more time for those things that make her feel most at ease.

Alongside her children, May leans into her old self, recapturing fragments- songs, memories, ideas, hopes.

There is power in taking a pause and slowing down to appreciate all that is already there, as children beckon us to do. There is joy in taking their hand, following, letting them lead us there- to play and to the wonder of the world, always reliably there.

By Sinead Halliday, Playgroup Victoria https://www.playgroup.org.au/