Misreading stories about playgrounds
Tonight, I want to take a text into a territory of purposeful misreading. I want to unname a playground, messily playing and breaking apart a construction that seem too solid in its ability to explain things away…
Note: this post was created with contributions from the educators of University of Victoria Childcare Centre and related to my ongoing thinking about play/grounding. It does not directly relate to the main research project; thank you – Tatiana
I stared at the melting snow angry at nation states at war and at dogs dying
I wondered whether it’s warm at Sitka Place and whether I would travel again
Pulling words that I wish to hold in my hand, like something with potential or full of desperation
I imagined drawing the vacant space and decomposed parts that were given a beginning of living
Or maybe a chance for reuse
Improvisations with collective constructions of tires, logs, stumps, ramps
Now throw in phrases, pixels and politics
Mix well
Dwelling with an idea, wander, world together and everyday moments are surfaces of an ethos
I practiced saying that word with pedagogical gusto, but then saw maintenance crews that came and removed the logs
They brought them back as stumps
I kept on reading. Found “n” missing in “honour”. And now entanglement hour reminds me that this is a job that asks to clock in and out of care
When I jumble the sentences, “trampoline” lands next to “overarching slowness”, which seems appropriate for a mess of things
A moving pile of wood chips, and wriggle worms, and living WITH, and lupins looking distressed
Try this for a mouthful: Ladybugs eat aphids, she says, shrugging shoulders.
Ambiguities and ambivalences of living and dying at the hungry mouths of polka dotted insects or rockets
Accountable we strive
Relationships of care articulated from there?
Erased or unknown, does a Yard even exist?
I’m just right here
