Unfortunately, I no longer spend my days building forts in bushes 
and making “potions” with dandelions and pine sap. I witness daily how central play is for development. A child can imagine and begin to explore any role from cop to cowgirl, from superhero to an exhausted mother pushing a heavy stroller waiting for the bus. As children we all play-out ideas and learn our world through empathy and imagination.
What an immense capacity: the ability and willingness to temporarily take on a role outside ourselves.. and come away with a greater understanding…
A mother of some of the children I work with, looked at me down on a kids’ level being goofy and straight-faced asked me “how do you play?” Working with
young children, I facilitate play daily, yet generally reject the idea that I participate. I tend to conjure images of a preschool teacher who worships disney movies and wears whinnie-the-pooh sweatshirts, you know the type. Even as a I write this I fear that perception. Yet here was an adult woman with two kids and she was really asking: “how do I connect with my kids the way you do?” Play offers us an opportunity to be outside ourselves and our comfort zone, to lower our fears about how we are being perceived, and really connect to people and experiences. I feel more open to others when I can imagine their daily life and find a place of identification. That old saying,
don’t judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes, mental role play creates the medium for that practice.
I am noticing there are many elements of play in my adult world. I believe we 
all find moments of play. I regularly play dress up. I feel more yogic when I don yoga pants and a zen tank, more hippe and carefree in a skirt, more nurturing in an apron, and more “cool” when I dress to go out as if I were an exceedingly fashionable woman I have never been in daylight. I imagine myself into situations before I commit to them. After an interview for a job, I foresee myself in that role, and evaluate if it’s a good fit for me. Looking for apartments, I forecast what it might feel like to live there, experience it each day. Especially when making life-changing decisions, like the one to move to Utah, I play with the idea of it first and foremost.
Manifestation and visualization seem not-so-distant from play. Descartes said “I think therefore I am” yet the closer truth for me seems to be: fake it ‘till you make it. I am becoming and play is a useful tool along the way. Not unlike the 
children I work with, I can present a less-authentic self to share with the world while protecting my fragile, dearer, inner self. Other times play helps me be expansive. I might be a in role playfully one day, allowing a side of me to come out, and in time, that side becomes a more integral and present part of me. Play is the bridge between a fantasy and reality. A safety net. An opportunity to be the person we might be with the easy out of: “just playin’.” I am the thoughtful, confident, beautiful, talented, woman I portray or am I just playin’?
What I am to be, I am now becoming. -B Franklin
young children, I facilitate play daily, yet generally reject the idea that I participate. I tend to conjure images of a preschool teacher who worships disney movies and wears whinnie-the-pooh sweatshirts, you know the type. Even as a I write this I fear that perception. Yet here was an adult woman with two kids and she was really asking: “how do I connect with my kids the way you do?” Play offers us an opportunity to be outside ourselves and our comfort zone, to lower our fears about how we are being perceived, and really connect to people and experiences. I feel more open to others when I can imagine their daily life and find a place of identification. That old saying, don’t judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes, mental role play creates the medium for that practice. 
