Playing with playing

Understanding play as a field of messy, uneven relationships suggests a kind of awkward dynamic tactile/imaginary shape that may be hard to capture but is attractive to think with. I imagine playing coming of Barad’s (2015) queer self-birth: “out of chaos and void, tohu v’vohu [tohu vavohu], an echo, a diffracted/differentiating/différancing murmuring, <a…> repetition without sameness” (p. 393).

Play is not unknown, but neither is it striving for my definition. It is a relationship that binds bodies, things and moments. It is shaped by us, and shapes us. Play produces materiality and meaning simultaneously. It’s not a means of producing healthier bodies, stronger arms or better social skills. It’s a functionless living possibility of broken skin, of a thrill, a hurt, a laugh, tilted head, murky taste in the mouth, sweat, shrieking, shutting out light, boots sliding along the trunk of a tree, cold of snow seeping in through waterproof fabric.

In the forest, preschoolers climb onto a stump of an old, uprooted tree. It’s so large that six bodies find space on top of its root ball, bellies flat against frozen bark, chins over the edge. There isn’t careful consideration on how to play on the tree, and there has hardly been a moment for selection. Their confidence excites me. They are proud to show up and climb, but it seems that any other detour will also do. Things are pulled together because they are here. There is a sense of promiscuity: a tree sets of play, or leaf sets of play. It’s worth nothing in particular, and sometimes it’s worth everything. I want to find a detail that would complete this picture, make this moment known and matter, but there is no arrival, just flashes of laughter from swift ones and anger from those who didn’t find space up on the tree, boots slipping, sound of waterproof clothing dirtying. How can I make descriptive a relationship without a function? Without a pattern or causality, I can hardly be clever, only see what will happen next.

References:

Barad, Karen (2015) Transmaterialities: Trans*/Matter/Realities and Queer Political Imaginings. GLQ: A JOURNAL OF LESBIAN and GAY STUDIES, 387-422.