Day 30: play & generosity
Today I worked at Playbox in town, the box of magical amazingness, with the most incredible people you’ll ever meet. We’re back tomorrow (and then Sunday, 11–3pm, outside the Corn Exchange!).
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And today was pure generosity.
Emma always writes the most amazing stuff about play, better than I ever could, but here’s what I saw today:
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kids leaving messages that said “I love you” & “you are loved.” We’re talking 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 year-olds.
That’s what they want to tell the world. That’s what comes out of them most naturally. Isn’t that wild? Isn’t that incredible?
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At the start of the week, they were shy.
Now, days on, they’ve found trust, consistency, confidence - thanks to Emma, Donna, Tillia & Esme.
Their imaginations have stretched awake again: bricks chalked onto the pavement became holes in the ground full of lava.
The world re-enchanted through play!
We had children speaking different languages, working together. Families finding each other. People being there for the whole 4 hours, because play asked nothing of them but their being there.
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And in between all that, people were generous not just to each other - but to me, also!
I had the most vulnerable, life-affirming conversations with Berlinda and Paul about uncertainty, about waiting, about how to make our lives count.
Berlinda asked if I’d always been “exuberant for life” or if getting ill sharpened it? I liked that description, exuberant for life. The truth is illness carved something open in me. It made me braver. But cannot remember what Smizz 1.0 was like about life. My memory feels not reliable.
Even “Residents”, from my area, stopped by with the kindest feedback from my Cllr days work, words I will carry with me.
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And then, as if the day was not already overflowing, a young girl appeared with Lilo and Stitch keychains from Primark, for all of us.
Her mom, who said she struggled with English, told us she wanted us to know we had “kind and generous hearts.” 😭😭😭
That is the kind of moment that stops you in your tracks. That is it. That is everything.
Because play is not just play. It is a place where we get to be more ourselves. It lets our armour slip off. It interrupts the noise that tells us we are less than we are. In play, there are no divides. In play, the world briefly remembers itself.
And maybe that is the most generous thing:
that in a time where everything is teaching us to harden,
to guard, to compete, to fear,
a chalk drawing, a bubble, a crazy marble run,
can teach us again how to soften.
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Play teaches us that love is instinct,
that generosity is muscle memory,
that joy is a wisdom older than any of us,
waiting to be picked up again.
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And every time we lean into it,
every time we choose to build worlds out of nothing,
every time a child’s note says you are loved,
we are reminded of the lesson we came here for:
that life is not about winning,
it is about witnessing each other.
It is about carrying wonder like a torch.
It is about refusing to let the magic go out.
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today, value isn’t created by filling a slot,
it’s created by connection.
By the combinations created by people.
By the magic that comes from diversity of opinion, background and motivation.
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Connection leads to ideas, to solutions, to breakthroughs. The false scarcity stated as, “I don’t have enough, you can’t have any,” is more truthfully, “together, we can create something better.”
That is play.
That is compassion and care.
Ahhhh!
Is that Emma B? She's fab! You're fab! This is fab... playing is fab! 😁 xxx