Two years ago, I developed a passion for Ping Pong. We purchased a ping pong table for the garage to play outside on lovely days with our fantastic neighbors in the best cul de sac in Kansas City. Many Sunday afternoons were spent playing while simultaneously dancing to Sunday by Ben Rector (which the neighborhood kids now request as "Ms. Kristin's music"). Sometimes, I would be so distracted dancing that I would miss the serve. Our kids ran free, occasionally stopping to watch an intense match, sometimes asking to play, too. We laughed until we cried more times than I can count, the definition of time well spent.
Twinning and winning.
About to be smoked by their wives.
I couldn't get enough! It was connective play, paired with movement, outside, with fantastic friends. As adults, weaving play into our grown-up, responsible lives takes intention. Becoming a parent taught me the power and importance of play, and I re-learned the art of it by watching my girls do this regularly at the playground and the pool. At some point, we grow up and become too serious and, let's be honest, too tired for much play. I now understand that play restores something in us lost long ago. It enlarges us to receive and offer joy.
During 2020, I read the book Joyful, which shifted my perspective on intentionally pursuing both play and joy. It also prompted a renovation of our home, but that's a story for another day (perhaps in a post on resiliency). This book opened my eyes to see where joy and play were already waiting for me and available. Amazingly, God has sprinkled it absolutely everywhere for us. As Ingrid names in Joyful: "The blossoming of the trees, the rising of the sun, the flow of the tides: these recurring events remind us of time's circular nature and create an underlying cadence of joy that we can rely on." I think it's God's way of showering us with tangible gifts of his love through beauty, scent, sound, and texture. Spend 10 minutes outside soaking in the sunrise with the birds; I almost guarantee you will sense it.
When I look back at my life, I see that I often tried to "save" joy and small pleasures for later. Perfume, wedding china, beautiful stationery, red lipstick, odds were high I was holding onto it for an unspecified future date. In the past, if I felt the urge to dance to a song I liked, I pushed it down because I was a responsible adult, and responsible adults don't bust out into spontaneous dancing. I definitely wasn't spending an afternoon playing ping-pong. We still enjoy the ping pong table, dance parties are a regular in our home (Come Alive from the Greatest Showman is currently on repeat), and I'm adding rollerblading to the mix this spring because it's fun and gets me outside. These things are small, but they aren't insignificant. Small pleasures add delight to our days, and if there is something I want to surrender to in this life, it's joy.
Ping pong with our neighbor, Chuck
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