We all need play in our lives

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At the beginning of the year, when I was in Berlin, I’d periodically walk through a local park to think and get some exercise. One particular walk was after a snowfall that had left patches of ice along the paths. Moving carefully, almost tiptoeing my way around, I found myself smiling as I watched toddlers being pulled on wooden sledges by their parents, and small children chasing each other with snowballs.

There was something about watching them play that made me feel both an unexpected jolt of delight and a little envious. I couldn’t recall the last time I had felt the sense of timelessness and free-spirited abandon that is infused in children’s playtime. Feelings that I had experienced not only as a child but at times in my adult life when I was a bit more carefree, especially after college and through my twenties.

The closest memories I could conjure were trips hiking with friends through the Montana mountains or cross-country skiing outside Seattle. Things that made me feel so alive and spirited.

Watching those children that morning last month has made me think about how rarely I use the word “play” in reference to my own life. I wonder if we all could use more of it, even the most serious and accomplished of us. And how we might reimagine it in our own grown-up lives.

The 20th-century Danish painter Peter Hansen seems also to have been taken by a view of children playing. His 1907-08 work “Playing Children, Enghave Square” depicts a line of girls swaying forwards with linked hands towards the girls opposite them. Their bodies are fully engaged in motion, their faces contorted in pleasure or uncertainty. Above them verdant leaves create small canopies against a backdrop of buildings whose windows look on to the square.

In the moment of play, the world seemingly belongs to these children, and their only focus is to negotiate their…