Please join me October 26 for Where Do the Children Play? an online presentation of the Canadian Society of Decorative Arts’ Ornamentum Lecture Series.
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Where Do the Children Play? is a curated tour of six distinctive Canadian play spaces with a smattering of contrasting international examples and a look back at yesteryear. Photos and video will illustrate different approaches and design elements that get kids coming back for more. Whether it’s public art, minimalist landscapes, child-led temporary creations or vernacular builds, each space offers seemingly endless moments of joy through the simple medium of play.
Participants will have the opportunity to consider the relation of play spaces within the broader urban design and planning context as we ask ourselves: Do our public spaces give children their due?
There is no cost associated with this event. Details availablehere.
Morning breezes are cooler now and the sun’s watered down warmth continues to wither away. In the higher latitudes autumn leaves spin and long shadows stretch. An opportune moment for reminiscing about longer, warmer days.
Back in July, the weather was wonderful. No atmospheric rivers, wildfires, or extreme heat events in our neck of the woods. A weekend of festivities just down the road in Gore Bay, Manitoulin Island pulling in the locals and visitors. Harbour Days celebrate the community’s connection with the water and Great Lakes’ boaters.
In the car the kids are excited, anticipating bare fun. You know the kind with no middle man, no intermediary, the anticipation of fun just popping all over the place. My two primary school age grandchildren, two of their friends and my youngest daughter in her debut year as a teen make up the kid complement.
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As we arrive, the cardboard boat race is wrapping up. Prizes are being handed out as we walk past the landing area. Some sodden boat remnants are scattered along the water’s edge. I’m guessing they weren’t the winners. This is an event I would have enjoyed seeing. It reminds me of the pumpkin boat race held for many years in Windsor, Nova Scotia,
It’s not long before we’re right in the middle of it – bouncy castles to the left of us, dunking booth and fishing tank to the right. Tucked away around the corner, the sudsy bubble zone. The bouncy castles are the standard commercial fare frequently installed at outdoor community events. The big inflatables are a blast off speed zone. It’s a fine day for racing. Straight out of the starting blocks they dash then climb, slide, jump, and clamber through the course.
On the periphery of a thin crowd we wait for the climax at the dunking booth. We do a bit of rubber necking. After all, it’s a spectator sport and we wait for the target to be hit just so for the dunkee to kerplop into the cool water.
The fish tank is lively with 20 or so kids spaced out around the perimeter. There are no mini-rods with magnets, clothes pins or plastic hooks used to snag some prize that will be broken or lost within minutes of pulling it from the water. Here it’s the real deal. The rods are short stout branches about 2 feet long with fishing line, hook, bobber and bait attached.
The 10 x10 foot tank is about 2.5 feet deep. Anglers are vying for the big prize, a real fish from the school of 12 inch trout. They’re reeling around the tank trying to find a way out, sensing the need for a more environmentally sustainable situation. Just the one escape though for the time being. Hooked, landed and into a plastic bag. Only one person walks away with a trout dinner while we’re there. Our stories are relegated to the ones that got away.
The intersection of Bouncy Castle and FoamDaddy Alley is a great spot to regroup and plan what’s next. With no warning she catapults around the corner. Speed, muscle and lightness just inches away as the fleeing doe brushes by the crowd. In one breath she is there and gone. I have never been so close to wild.
The doe is long gone and we’re pulled as a group to the foam zone. It’s like Mr. Bubbles from the ’60s taking over a corner of the municipal park. The kids are loving it.
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Thank you summer, thank you Manitoulin, thank you Gore Bay and most of all, thank you kids………
It’s a beautiful afternoon in Paris on the fringes of the 16e arrondissement. There’s freewheeling action taking place just beyond the Place du Trocadéro in the shadows of the Palais de Chaillot.
A festive atmosphere is buzzing as skateborders, roller skaters and the occasional cyclist navigate the downhill slope of Avenue Gustave-V-de-Suède. Onlookers crane their necks and press in from opposite sides of the street.
Speed and maintaining control are the key considerations for those hurtling toward the bottom. The crowds admire sang-froid navigators who sweep through the course with panache.
This photo was taken in the early 1970s when our family lived in Paris. Kids and crowds came out for the fun, thrills and sometimes spills. This young lad’s eyes are locked, gaze straight ahead, legs fully extended 6 inches above the road’s surface, hands gripping each side of the skateboard as acceleration picks up at the descent’s mid-point. Is it a look of alarm, elation, unbridled terror, or sublime release on his face?
This is a thing, an event, a destination that happens when weather permits. At least that was the case in the unsanctioned days. In the late 1970s, the Ville de Paris formally authorized skateboarding at Trocadéro. In the new century, times have changed again as a recent makeover of the space seems to preclude skateboarding.
Where might the risk – benefit analysis of this activity shake out on a continuum? One thing I do remember is that the street which ran down almost to the Seine directly opposite the Eiffel Tower was a shared space. In what appeared to be mutual co-existence, room and allowances were made for skaters and bikers in the midst of vehicular traffic. In fact, many skaters were pulled back uphill for their next descent by hanging onto the rear bumpers of cars…
More than 40 years after our family outings to Tracadéro, my dad and I were visiting Paris and saw a young lad doing his thing, a slow slalom on his scooter on the sidewalk right next to where it all used to happen. The creation and staking out of play opportunities in public spaces is an important freedom to promote and protect. Vive les français!
This week demonstrations and riots are taking place across France in response to the police killing of a young man. Condolences to the family and may they have the opportunity to see justice served.
Many thanks to the Canadian Society for Decorative Arts for inviting me to write an article in the Spring/Summer 2023 issue of their magazine, Ornamentum. The magazine is available at newsstands and selected articles, including Where Do the Children Play?, are available online. It was a treat to be able to share my passion for play in a piece that takes a look at six play spaces in eastern Canada that keep kids coming back for more.
The magazine’s editor did a wonderful job of unpacking, paring down, buffing up and generally bringing improvements to my storytelling. Thank you Janna, it was a real pleasure working with you. I encourage PlayGroundology readers to browse through Ornamentum‘s online offerings for an eclectic selection of stories that reflect the decorative arts across Canada “exploring and cultivating the aesthetics of the everyday”.
Writing this piece brought back some wonderful memories of all the adventures and simple pleasures that the kids and I embraced on our travels in the pursuit of play. We first checked out Montreal’s Salamander Playground on World Cup Final Day 2010. It was also the first time we took a road trip to test out a specific play space. We were not disappointed. Afterwards we extended the adventure by taking part in a weekly drumming event at the foot of the mountain. It was all fun and games until…
More images of the play spaces are available in this photo story that supplements the Ornamentum article.
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Leave a comment if you’d like to share a favourite play space.
On a final note, Happy Birthday to my wife who has kindly indulged my sometimes mania about play for the past several years.
What was your ultimate pre-teen adventure? Consider this one from the late 1960s. A Shetland pony, a horse buggy, two brothers 9- and 11-years-old, a solo trip across three states and an international border to arrive at Montréal’s Expo 67.
Pony Boys is the most recent offering from Op-Docs the New York Times’ award-winning series of short documentaries by independent filmmakers. Archival footage and present day interviews with the adventurers Tony and Jeff Whittemore recount an unbelievable story of parental trust and confidence.
Following a well thought out preparation period, Tony and Jeff’s parents let them hit the road for what turned out to be a 27 day, 350 mile trip in a buggy pulled by King, the family’s beloved Shetland pony. From Needham, MA to Montréal it was a slow cookin’ ‘Expo 67 or Bust’ kind of trip with virtually no onsite parental support.
Eric Stange’s 22-minute documentary captures the brothers’ perspectives 55 years after their incredible journey. Interestingly, they both are very matter of fact reflecting on the experience. During that summer of 1967, they felt that nothing extraordinary was happening. Even with stories in The Boston Globe, The New Yorker and other outlets they were pressed to understand a growing media hoopla.
Public opinion was divided. Letters and phone calls rolled in. There were those supporting the family’s decision to empower Tony and Jeff taking this trip. Others bluntly stated that the parents were irresponsible. Imagine the social media furor this would generate today!
The boys made it to Expo 67 none the worse for wear. They were feted by event organizers and for a brief moment were international media darlings capturing hearts and minds with their story of pluck and persistence. The ‘fame’ receded quickly but even today, Tony and Jeff reflect on those days when they were kings of the roadway, adventure bound.
Time and again throughout the film, Tony and Jeff circle back to their mother. She was the one who made it all possible. She was the spark of trust and agency. Is this the kind of adventure you could foresee for your children of a similar age?
“PLEASE WALK ON THE GRASS” the sign at the entrance to one of our favourite urban parks proclaims. As the car fades away into the hazy parking lot distance, an undulating terrain unfolds as far as we can see. There are acres of grassland, still ponds, stands of trees, walking paths and an unhurried meandering stream. The shift of scale and speed is a warm embrace as senses are awash in a new palette of sounds and colours. It’s as if the Toronto bustle has vanished.
Canada 2009 – Toronto Island. By Rudolf Cohilj from Düsseldorf, Germany – Toronto Island – CC BY-SA 2.0
As apartment-dweller kids we are happy to oblige our feet and get them all familiar with the springy green. We aren’t bereft of grass where we live. There is a decent amount right on our doorstep along with space to breathe and run. What we enjoy on a daily basis though pales in comparison to the full on magnificence of expansive park landscapes.
Regular family park outings are a thing since farther back than I can remember. Black and white photos of excursions from the early 60s show me all decked out in a little blazer, a bow tied shirt, dark shorts, almost knee highs and dressy shoes. I think of it as my High Park wardrobe. I wonder still if it’s special occasion outfitting or de rigueur for each visit.
There is not much I recall clearly from those early days except a massive pergula with what seemed like 40, or 50 hanging baskets of flowers, a huge circular path with floral pattern infill and rowboats skiffing across a reed ringed pond.
Over the years there were plenty of park walk good times. We’d drop coins in the well wishing for some kind of treat that often materialized later in the day. We kept active climbing trees, kicking piles of leaves and when we could get away with it mercilessly splashing the puddles dry. In lucky moments there were animal kingdom adventures – a rogue raccoon, the drumming thrall of a pileated woodpecker, the sidewise slither of a garter snake, or a ballet of monarchs flitting through a milkweed patch.
It was only in junior high that I started to kick up a fuss about the park expeditions. I eventually bowed out and stopped going pretty much altogether. But after all those seasons, all those steps – a sense of sanctuary had taken root.
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After a break of 20 years or so I resumed the park walks adding another generation to the mix. The parks were as good as ever. Well better, now I had kids of my own to bring along. With my parents and the small ones in tow it wasn’t long before I cottoned on that sharing the wonders of park adventures across generations makes for deep and lasting impressions.
Years ago when our son first started taking on walking adventures, we’d go to Halifax’s Point Pleasant Park during the spring melt. Rivulets no more than a foot across hugged the pathways. The deep gullies dropped down maybe four inches. On a day with flow, a small twig or leaf could hurtle 10 feet down the waterway fast enough to keep a nearly two-year-old on his toes. This small area of trees and twigs, of mud and wet, of grass and leaves, puddles and sky was the space he staked out to play, to discover, to paddle, to laugh. Week after week the fun continued until the temporary waterways receded. These little morning outings were the beginning of a series of outdoor adventures that continues to this day.
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Things have been going pretty well. All my kids appreciate the outdoors and to this day choose activities that bring them into close contact with nature. I’m hoping now that the gift of regular family park outings I received from my parents will be passed on by my kids. They seem to have the knack.
More than 60 years after my first park excursions, that simple, straight up invitation continues to resonate. What a stroke of minimalist messaging brilliance, five, one-syllable words to encourage a transition, an immersion into another world. PLEASE WALK ON THE GRASS. Whatever we do, let’s not worry if the grass is greener somewhere else, let’s just roll up our sleeves and get greening the best we can.
For many it’s April Fools Day tomorrow. My youngest daughter gave me the heads up as she was heading to bed that I will be getting quite the trick. Seems like water could be involved. Wish me well….
Here in Nova Scotia it’s also the first day of fishing season. Water will be involved for sure and we’re ready to go. My son was feeling a bit poorly today so I’m hoping he’s on the recovery list tomorrow. We planned months ago for him to take the day off school so we could cast a few.
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We’ll update you later in the season on how we’re making out. We’re hoping to hook some striped bass when the time comes in May or June. In case you’re wondering, we’re almost exclusively catch and release anglers. Talk soon – gone fishin’.
We must start building a world that puts the youngest in society first: building cities, education systems, healthcare systems and solutions to save our planet, at the forefront. This competition is an opportunity to make a real difference to the lives of the youngest children.
Anne-Birgitte Albrectsen, CEO of the LEGO Foundation
The Challenge focuses on early childhood – from birth to six-years-old – and will consider issues such as early childhood education, nutrition, emotional and social well-being of the family, and violence reduction among others.
LEGOLAND, California
The LEGO Foundation has a longstanding commitment to philanthropic work that benefits children. It is also known for engaging creatively in the promotion of play through global activities and alliances likeThe Real Play Coalitionfounded by The LEGO Foundation, Unilever, IKEA Group and the National Geographic Society in Davos in 2018.
We’re a four generation LEGO family here at PlayGroundology. There’s been a lot of building over the years – planes, boats, campers, ice cream trucks, farms, zoo enclosures, playgrounds and I’ve lost count of how many self-designed houses. Years ago, the kids were using blocks from LEGO’s little sister DUPLO as indoor skates. The ingenuity cracked us up….
With the kids getting older the storage area is now home to a big chest that no longer gets hauled out quite as frequently. When the grandchildren or younger neighbourhood kids drop in, out come the little bricks and the imaginations go wild.
Our oldest, now in the process of getting his driving licence, got his start behind the wheel at LEGO Land in California 10 years ago. Their electric car fleet brought a lot of joy to junior drivers and a good amount of laughs for parents. It was a great place to visit with so much less hype than many of the other theme parks.
It’s a fine day when a global corporation walks the walk re corporate social responsibility and spends goodly sums of money on children. That doesn’t preclude us from hoping they will commit more and that others will follow suit. I hope it works out that Low Income Countries and economically disadvantaged communities in High and Middle Income countries are the primary beneficiaries of this Challenge.
Play Outdoors Magazine is relatively new on the Canadian play and publishing scenes. Well known educator Dr. Beverlie Dietzeis at the helm rounding up content from educators, practitioners and researchers. As editor, Dietze has a keen eye for stories that inform and inspire. You can get a preview of the Winter Issue here.
Play Outdoors Magazine – New Kid on the Block
Beverlie generously invited me to contribute a piece to this fourth issue that has just come off the press. Originally entitled The Accidental Making of a Play Enthusiast, the article appears below.
Leave of a lifetime
It all starts with 180 days of magic. For six months we savour everyday wonder. With our two small children in tow we embrace familiar spaces and explore faraway places. All the while, we are grateful for this seemingly endless parental leave horizon.
Open-ended adventures are daily occurrences. Frequently they are set in motion by our 2 1/2-year-old son Noah and his ever-expanding collection of good ideas. In our experience, good ideas lead to play. Play leads to laughter. Laughter leads to more good ideas and so it goes, a virtuous circle of discovery and joyfulness.
Anything is possible
Indoor road hockey is high on the good ideas greatest hits list complete with a rendition of the national anthem. Balls of all sizes, colours and bounciness factors that are ready to be rolled, kicked and thrown about are not far behind. Then there’s noise making par excellence, impromptu rehearsals with pots and pans clang-a-banging experimental compositions that only a father can love.
At six-months-old, Nellie-Rose’s merry gregariousness, fascination with touch and vocal orchestrations are play writ large. She is Miss Social Butterfly giggling, cooing and making eyes with everyone around her. With great intensity she moves her head this way and that following older brother’s escapades. She desperately wants to be part of the independently mobile club. Before long she’s moving under her own steam, uncontainable.
Nellie – raring to go
Play is a daily staple for the four of us and almost as sustaining as the air we breathe. For our infant and toddler duo, it is the main event interrupted only by basic needs like sleep and hunger. There is learning, there is bonding and just plain fun. It is all an incomparable gift.
Our hands are full, but we still have wiggle room to learn a few new tricks and not just of the parenting variety. I’ve had my sights set on getting up to speed with social media. Headfirst I plunge publishing a blog that recounts our family adventures throughout this 180-day trajectory.
One day on a visit to see grand-papa and grand-maman, we swoop down on several playgrounds in rapid succession in their hometown of Sorel, Quebec. My father-in-law is in his element. A physical education teacher, he knows all the best spots. He’s an attentive tour guide and his enthusiasm takes us by storm.
Playground Beat
Sorel is an early adopter of promoting playgrounds on its municipal website. This simple method of raising public awareness along with grand-papa’s discerning concierge persona inspires a new venture for the kids and I. On our return to Nova Scotia, we get ready for some extended play escapades as we kick off our own urban playground tour. We launch Playground Chronicles, one of the first blogs of its kind in Canada, to share details on outdoor city spaces dedicated to our youngest citizens. The first post features our neighbourhood park.
Hold on tight
In short order we’re criss-crossing Halifax putting playgrounds through their paces. Each post contains photos of the equipment at the featured playground(s), a narrative describing what is on offer at the location and a link to a pin drop on a dedicated Google map.
It’s a marvelous past time. Over the course of the blog’s four-year lifespan, Noah, Nellie and youngest sister Lila, who is born into the mayhem, are steadfast companions on the playground circuit. Noah bestows the ‘good idea’ brand on our project and keeps a mental running inventory of the places and equipment that meet his good housekeeping seal of approval.
On arrival at each new venue, there is a clamoring to get out of the car and then a burst of energy propels them into the new play area. The chorus starts almost immediately.
“Papa, papa, watch me, watch me.”
“Can you push me papa, can you push?”
“Look at me, look at me papa, I can do it myself.”
It’s a chance for the kids to strut their stuff, to demonstrate accomplishments and a dash of derring-do. For my part I utter an occasional cautionary ‘be careful’. In rare circumstances there are heart-stopping moments.
A going concern
One day the kids rush off in separate directions. I’m speechless when I locate two-year-old Lila. She is two-thirds of the way up a 12-step set of stairs leading to the top of a double-twist slide. Almost instantaneously, I’m right behind her. I didn’t know I was capable of moving so rapidly. She finishes the climb and whooshes down the corkscrew. Disaster averted, I can breathe again. In all our playgrounding years that was our closest call to an injury.
now and then
Early in the tour I notice some recurring themes. Off-the-shelf playground equipment from major manufacturers seems to be the prevailing flavour, resulting in a sameness in playspace after playspace. Old faithfuls, like roundabouts, are extinct. The up again, down again teeter-totters are on the endangered list. Playgrounds are underpopulated. Most children are accompanied by parents.
Can’t catch me
The continuing adventures of our merry band of playgrounders starts me thinking. Initially, I’m drawn back to my own childhood as a point of reference. In those mid-1960s grade school years, it seemed we had a little bit of everything at our fingertips. Outside our 4-storey, 80 unit apartment building was the sweetest little patch of green, a four-acre park that was a gathering place, a central play zone. This shangri-la valley was given over, for all practical purposes, to us kids for our exclusive use.
Dense bush outposts were firmly rooted on the high ground with solitary trees sprinkled here and there along the slopes. The flatlands were wide and deep, perfect for baseball, kite flying, British bulldog, imagined battlefields and just about any other tomfoolery that came to us.
Also on the flats, a smattering of playground equipment strung out in a straight line – swings, slide, monkey bars, rocket climber. They weren’t so much a destination as peripheral fixtures there to be used should the fancy take us. The landscape itself was the set with the playground pieces frequently relegated to prop status.
In that rosy rear-view mirror, wall-to-wall play seemed to be the norm. We roamed by foot, by bike, by public transit. Except for Saturday morning cartoons, or other television spectaculars, outdoors with friends for hours on end was the place to be.
To be sure, we all had rules to observe and break (at our own peril). By giving us unsupervised time and space to play, our parents were investing us with trust. The trust promoted agency. We were able to call the shots, to make decisions within reason on what, when, where, who and how we played. Every day was a blank slate. Our default was to go in search of fun.
rediscovering just play
The more I googled about contemporary play, the more I understood that since my days there had been a wild swing of the pendulum in the opposite direction. I learned that mobility and range were continually being reduced, that children were growing up in play environments that were decidedly risk averse and that their rights, including the right to play, were being curtailed, or worse trampled upon.
In the web
Fortunately, there has existed for some time a broad international coalition of individuals and organizations whose objective is to see play flourish. This group includes sculptors, playworkers, landscape designers, urban planners, community activists, academics from a variety of disciplines, health and recreation professionals, environmental advocates, authors and many more.
To take a bit of a deep dive into the current play world, I turn to a by now tried and true medium. Six months after the Playground Chronicles launch, a new blog, PlayGroundology hits the streets. The first of what will be more than 450 posts features a Manhattan play installation, ‘Playground’by American sculptor Tom Otterness. From the outset I receive lots of encouragement from laypeople and others more heavily invested. People I contact are generous with their time and knowledge. It’s a welcome, recurring trait.
Playground by Tom Otterness
PlayGroundology publishes international content with stories from Sweden, Singapore, Ghana, Denmark, Australia, France, Chile, Vietnam, the UK, the US, Canada and other points around the world. In my virtual walkabouts, I get introduced to adventure playgrounds, loose parts, museum exhibits, documentaries, works of art and NGOs dedicated solely to play. Off blog, in the real world I create a backyard loose parts emporium, help organize workshops, public information sessions and play events. Who knows what’s next?
Let the journey continue
Nearly 15 years have passed since the experiences of that parental leave nudged me along the path of play. There is still ample meandering left. In the years to come, I predict that safeguarding the right to play and helping to make it flourish will become more of a political act. Knowledge and experience of play in a time of crisis will continue to be an important asset to help children who through no fault of their own find themselves in impossible situations.
It’s been a great journey so far and along the way I’ve been doing my best to embrace a ‘just play’ ethos.
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End note
Thank you to my love Mélanie and to our three kids. None of this poking around the play world would be possible without Mélanie’s unreservedly good humour and patience. As for the kids it has just been wonderful to share parts of their play journeys over the years. Now that they are almost all in their teens and play is no longer in quite as high rotation in their daily lives, it’s wonderful to see how it continues to stand them in good stead.
As kids my brother and I had a lot of freedom, plenty of opportunity to discover and make mistakes. Our parents were always there for us in the good times and bad. We got a great start in life as this clip of mom and dad as young parents celebrating my birthday – about three-years-old I’d guess – captures.
They never missed a chance to ask how our respective projects were developing. On the play side of things, my dad thoroughly enjoyed the public spaces loose parts extravaganzas I helped organize. He couldn’t get enough of watching the kids doing their own thing. It always brought a smile to his face. Thanks for reading….
(HALIFAX – Memory Lane) – I don’t remember a great deal about the morning commutes. Perhaps the single parent, pre-schooler, bustle and hustle, getting up and dressed then breakfasted followed by the out the door skedaddle to catch the bus wasn’t wholly conducive to nurturing deep-rooted memories.
The afternoon pick up at daycare was different though. It was good to be reunited at the unwhirling end of the day. Time seemed more expansive, leisurely, almost langurous as my daughter and I made our way hand in hand to the bus stop.
We were regulars on our route, transit riders by necessity. Other than a short-lived, hand-me-down ’66 Beaumont Acadian I received as a gift at 17, cars were not part of my reality. Articulated buses were in high rotation on this route. Whenever one pulled up to the curb, we couldn’t wait to get on. We’re talking a mobile affordance par excellence.
Accordion streetcar – Edinburgh, Scotland
Midway down the bus was the pleated accordion section. There were no seats here. On the floor was a large circular steel plate. We positioned ourselves just inside the perimeter. As the bus swung through a 90 degree corner with the circle rotating, the accordion expanded on one side as it contracted on the other.
We loved to ride that circle. Sometimes we managed to keep our balance standing up through two full quadrants. If the bus was moving too fast we held on tight to the shiny vertical poles reflecting stretch versions of ourselves. On straightaways the accordion section’s suppleness made for big, almost bowl us over bumps. It was the cheapest theme park ride in town and one that never seemed to get old.
On days that the force wasn’t with us and we were relegated to an accordion-less bus ride we’d go into Plan B mode. Scrinched up in the seat next to the door where people entered to pay their fares, we would settle in for storytime. We had favourites including The Paper Bag Princess, The Wheels on the Bus, Badger’s Parting Gifts and The Giving Tree.
In public view we created a space that was both private and shared. Some of our fellow passengers we knew by sight. Those who were attuned to our ritual seemed as appreciative of the stories as we were. The analog readings required no external energy source unlike today’s portable devices.
Many, many years after those daily commutes home, I thought of our adventurous, mildly risky rides and wrote round and round. They were fine moments of bonding, laughter and the occasional tumble. We were creators of public transit fueled unintentional green play.
round and round
got a gentle squeeze
on the accordion bus
pumped up and down
memory lane
in one bending corner
shrinking and stretching
in one breath of moment
i was laughing right next to you
you danced the floating circle
small fingers extended
my paper bag princess
taming a bucking urban dragon
got a gentle squeeze
on the accordion bus
a little girl you were
in one breath of be
I love the gentle squeeze of memory. After more than 25 years, it is probable this particular rear view mirror has a rosy rose tinge to it. To this day, I still get a lift when I’m riding the accordion bus’ spinning circle.
PlayGroundology advocates for a wider variety of play opportunities for kids in public spaces. Since 2010, over 450 posts about play in various locations around the world have been read by parents, play enthusiasts, practitioners, and policy makers in over 200 countries. The award-winning blog is referenced by readers as an inspiring source of content on the power and beauty of play.
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