A Secret Play Date

Every Tuesday.

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Space for play.

Last week, I decided to Play-Date by clearing space for play, readying the stage.

I'd been out of town and such, and there were piles accumulating on and around my desk. I was starting to feel hemmed in by paper.

At the same time, I'd been thinking that I wanted to refresh my view of the office, or at least the desk.

Everything is a painting.

I'd watched this wonderful documentary about Charles and Ray Eames (people who made a life out of being curious).

The story people told about Ray was that she saw everything as a painting. She had studied with Hans Hofmann and like so many of his students, internalized his theory of dynamic composition.

So, said the talking heads, Ray saw everything she did in terms of painting.

The set for a film.

The design for an ad.

The space for an exhibition.

The home they retreated to.

And she would arrange and rearrange, adding a touch of this, and the next day you'd see she replaced it with that.

It's okay.

That felt very permission-giving for me. Not only is it okay to have visually interesting stuff around to excite the eye, but it's also okay to spend time on it, mixing it up.

And it also reminded me that, even when you have stuff you love around you, when you see it every day, sometimes you cease to see it. And then how can it do the job of delighting you?

So that's what I had in mind when I said I was hoping for a visual refresh of my work space.

The thing is, I thought it would be quick and easy.

Not quite.

I's still in progress.

And I've had two Play Dates with it already -- one on my own, and one cheered on by the Society.*

*Next meeting up in the treehouse: this coming Saturday. Sign up to join us.

Live green things.

Here's what I did get done:

• Banished the piles that were on the desk -- all that stuff went to all the various proper places.

• Created new entries for my projects binder (perhaps to work on for March's 'Why Not Now?'*) from notes that were pile-ish.

• Moved the stuff from the windowsill in front of my desk onto the desk itself. I'm thinking of it as a staging area, rather than a mess.

• Potted some plant cuttings in glasses that called to them, and added them to the windowsill. Now I have more living green stuff nearby and that feels good. (And hooray for having half-done projects around like a true scanner -- that made it so easy.)

What about today's Play Date?

Well, to be honest, I'm writing this Monday night, after a very stressful day that included emergency rooms at two different hospitals (don't worry).

So odds are good that I'm going to be tired on Tuesday, the official day of play.

Continuing to fiddle around with the desk area might be a good way to Play Date, under the circumstances.

So that is the plan.

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Join me?

You can check in here in the comments or on the Secret Play Date page on Facebook to let us know how you're doing, and give a yay for the people who are joining in.

You could post it on twitter with the #secretplaydate hashtag.

You don't have to share, though.

You could note it in your journal, or whisper it to the cat, and still feel the glow of being part of a group that does things a little differently for an hour every Tuesday.

And if you're not sure where to start, there's always the Secret Play Date DIY Kit.

Could you use a little Play-Dating today?

And pssst: you can still Play-Date and check in with us, even if it's not Tuesday anymore.