A Playful Revolution

A short walk from my home is a marshland and river running through the center of the Reed College campus. I have been visiting my favorite viewpoints and baby alder trees in every season for the past two years, feeling grounded by the predictable rhythms of the deciduous plants and resident ducks, and delighted by new discoveries. This past weekend was the first time I ever saw river otters, and there were four of them – tumbling over one another in the water, bobbing up to crunch a little snack, and disappearing in a trail of bubbles. At one point I was close enough to see their whiskers and hear the little peeps they made to one another. Two popped up on a log with their paws tucked politely and looked straight at me for a moment before diving back in to play with their lunch. They showed no concern for the iridescent sheen on the water pooling near them, nor worry about their supply of crustaceans running low. They were in their element, at play, and the world from their vantage point between air, water, and land must have felt like an Eden.

Earlier this week I attended a leadership meeting for the board where I still serve as Past President, and with the President called away for a family emergency, I chaired the meeting. I felt myself drawn quickly out of my role of passive adviser into the middle of a swirl of logistical and interpersonal challenges. Always one for the big picture and familiar with the organization’s vision and historical barriers, I saw my attempts to reintroduce harmony as tied to many elements now beyond my control. My body tensed, my voice became urgent, my mind narrowed, and a migraine began burrowing its way behind my left eye. I left feeling frustrated, defensive, and helpless. I had taken a leadership role in this organization to resolve the very issues I was now seeing creep back in and I churned in restless heart-break at the idea of spending the year watching good people suffer as the structure and support I had built crumbled around them. It was no longer my role to smooth the way and I realized I did not trust anyone else to manage it.

So much of my life’s effort has been spent in the spirit of rebellion – showing myself that I can overcome my fears, showing others that I can do what they think is impossible, or railing against an organization or strategy that appears dysfunctional to me. I created change by stiffening my core for a grand push, steeling myself against resistance and misunderstanding, and building endurance for championing a vision that no one else could see. My work was not motivated by a love of the process, but by the outcome I envisioned achieving. The more status and responsibility I had, the more my work became about the business to conduct, a timeline to follow, productivity to inspire, a reputation to consider, and plenty of suspicion of manipulation or alternative agendas. I felt frustrated and misunderstood if I had to let a project go, and even when I was successful, I encountered a hopeless chain of new challenges linking back to broader political and economic systems I felt too exhausted to tackle.  Suspicion stifles creativity. Fear kills collaboration. Rigidity atrophies authentic kindness. I don’t want to live that way anymore. My body cannot. It’s tense and lonely, and poisoned with resentment.

Two days after that board meeting, I sat in a day-long orientation for my new temp job cashiering for the first grocery store in the world certified as a B(enefit) corporation. I felt excited to hear about their paid volunteer time, profit-sharing, employee discounts, training programs, and support of local farmers. But it was the way that they approached their triple bottom-line – a commitment to balancing people, planet, and profit – that really moved me. Trust is the foundation of their business model – from opening new stores in a time when the industry is struggling, to empowering staff to do whatever it takes to say “yes” and please a customer, to their Blue Slip program that gives staff first pick of food nearing expiration. They trust staff not to steal from the company, they trust customers to make reasonable requests, and they trust that their business model will enable them to flourish. They do not deny that some may take advantage; they simply choose to focus on kindness and good intentions. The founders did not wait for the world to change; they created a world that matched their vision. And for the brief time I led that board, I had too.

The jobs I have truly loved were those with a spirit of comradery and trust in each others’ good intentions.  It was safe to break the rules in order to explore and to simply enjoy being with each other. This happened when my boss at the ice cream shop showed up after closing with kahlua to make spiked milkshakes for us, when my fellow waitresses and I role played customers and made up silly songs, and when the other admin staff and I at the dialysis center decorated our offices and quizzed each other on how to pronounce impossible words. I watched a young man at the residential home I worked at flourish because our social worker gave him privileges and trusted him to do the right thing in taking control of his own life with the safety of her guidance. and to see life from an angle of greater possibility and hope. In those spaces, we get hopeful, we get creative, we feel interconnected, and we start doing amazing things for one another and for this world from a place of joy. And this is something the very best leaders, and employers, understand.

True play is a way of engaging with the world around me that delights in the infinite life-affirming possibilities and mysterious synergies there are to discover. It is a process, not a product – arising spontaneously when there is a safe space alone or with others to relax and push the boundaries of what I believe is possible just to see what happens. It is not about drunken uninhibited catharsis, theatrically forced hilarity, or a desperate ploy to break the tension or gain approval. Those otters were simply taking the fact that they could swim and really feeling into all they could do, pushing the boundaries of their ability. No feelings were hurt when they vied for a spot on a slippery log – there was mutual understanding of this game of balance and joyful exploration of their shared “otterness”. The result was a spectacle that we as human beings seem to find universally up-lifting and heart-warming.  And I believe that is because we long to live that way ourselves.

I release the burden of saving and fixing all the damaged places and beings in this world. I cannot control the people or the circumstances around me, or all the messages telling me there is not enough money, kindness, safety, or food to go around, but I can find the courage to give and receive trust and embrace my playfulness. I can let that rebellious sense of abundance heal what fear had made small and hard and shriveled in me, so that I can again become a warm and throbbing corner of our mighty human spirit. This week, I started small, as we all do, mopping while singing along to old school tunes, filling out a Blue Slip for a free kale salad, and telling a customer, warmly, “Yes, you can mix together three kinds of bulk beans. Just choose the price that feels right to you.”

Nancy

“Rebellion is when you look society in the face and say, ‘I understand who you want me to be, but I’m going to show you who I actually am.’” – Anthony Anaxagorou