Go outside and play
Go outside and play. It was my mother’s solution for all my childhood grumbling.
Bored? You’ve been cooped up in the house too long—go outside and play. A little stomach ache? You need some fresh air—go outside and play. Can’t get the Tinker Toys to cooperate, so you’re methodically chucking them at your older brother? Perfectly understandable. Also unacceptable—go outside and play.
Looking back, I realize her motive may have been survival. We were four high-voltage kids in one small farmhouse. We played indoor games like Olympic Sofa Vault and Tricycle Kitchen Derby. How she clung to her sanity is a mystery.
After she ushered me outside, I was on my own. Boredom in the great outdoors is still tedious, but it does present more options. I bounced tennis balls off the side of the garage and caught them in my brother’s baseball mitt. I played hide-and-seek with the dog, even though he found me every time and he was terrible at hiding.
On windy days, I wore leather gloves and tried to fly by simultaneously jumping and holding aloft a sheet of aluminum siding twice my height. I never claimed to be smart.
I floated homemade boats in the tank and sang all the songs I knew. “Ring of Fire” and “Streets of Laredo” factored heavily in my repertoire. In the winter I stomped trails through the snow or rode an inner tube down the drifts north of our barn. Slowly, I came to realize that going outside to play was the best use of my time.
It still is. What if the solution to all our adult grumbling is the same advice my mom gave me? You’ve been cooped up in the house too long. You need some fresh air. Harassing those you love isn’t the answer. Go outside and play.
In a community like mine, many people work outside. They bless or curse the weather as it helps or harms their cause, but most wouldn’t trade their days under the sky for a career behind an office door.
And while it’s refreshing to come inside to a thermostat-controlled environment at the end of a hard day, many people who work outside also choose to play outside, when they have the time.
Romantic poets opined about the restorative power of nature. They venerated grass, trees, bird song, sunshine, moonlight and gleaming bodies of water. They probably didn’t have to mow their lawns, or scoop their driveways every winter. But there’s something to be said for the power of fresh air and exercise in restoring a healthy perspective on life.
When the walls are closing in, even a walk outside is enough to lower the frustration level to just below Tinker Toy chucking. Stuck on a problem? Go outside for a swim, a windows-down drive, a bike ride, a run, some horseshoes or a game of pickle ball. Shoot some hoops. Play wiffle ball, frisbee golf, regular golf, irregular golf (my game), and see what happens. Relaxing in the fresh air may shake loose the answers you’re searching for.
Time at a lake never hurts. Gardening counts. Even sitting on the porch with a cup of coffee is an outdoor activity. And in the winter, you can still ride an inner tube down some drifts. Or maybe you like to click into a pair of snowshoes or point your ski tips down a powdery slope somewhere. The point is, we have to trust my mom. She said to go outside and play when we feel like grumbling, and she was right. If she was motivated in part by preserving her own sanity, that’s okay.
The woman has never steered me wrong.