It's not every day that one's world view shifts. One minute, there I am, trying to decide between Raisin Bran and leftover Pad Thai. And the next, this thought walks in the back door of my brain and I am so struck that I completely stop wondering what I did in my sleep to make my hair look like the top of the Chrysler building.
It started with remembering a dream where Derek Jeter and I are bowling. Well, truth is, Derek was bowling, and he was damn good at it. I was watching. That he was managing to bowl down a full alley in my 600 square foot apartment was pure dream-physics, along with the fact that he was, in the other room, also in a playoff baseball game. I knew this was a message dream, as Derek had clothes on, unlike others where he and I have co-starred with absolutely no artistic differences.
As my brain reviewed the tape, I realized that Jeter was not, technically, working. He was playing. And he had figured out how to get someone to give him money--a lot of it, actually--to do just that. Or maybe he hadn't figured it out as much as believed he could. And that's the thought that stopped me somewhere between the cereal and the milk. Especially as I have been struggling with just this concept ever since Bobby Cangelosi turned me in to the nuns for coloring hair onto the baby Jesus statue. I thought I'd done a brilliant job, especially with the bangs. Apparently not.
I wonder what would happen if we took play as seriously as Derek does--if we believed in the right to play with anything approaching our belief in the demands of work. So, I've decided to believe in playing, and report back. I'm starting small but have a feeling this whole thing is just going to snowball. Especially when I get a hold of some crayons.
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