The other day my daughter called me, half joking, to say that somebody should invent adult recess. That it should become a thing. We laughed, and then we hung up, and then her comment did what the true ones always do — it followed me around for days.
Because I do miss recess. I really miss recess. The bell rang, you dropped everything, you ran for the nearest door, and for twenty minutes nothing was expected of you except to go be alive. Nobody graded it. Nobody tracked it. And nobody ever rang a bell to tell us it was over. It just quietly never rang again.
I’ve been watching my three-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter lately, the way she moves into play without a moment’s hesitation — her imagination just erupts, she laughs at the silliest things, and almost everything makes her curious.
Imagine if we could still do that. The bell rings, we drop everything, we head for the nearest door. And then, of course, the stupid adulting thing steps in. We tell ourselves we’ll play when the work is finished and everyone else is taken care of — and deep down we know that day is not actually coming. Even our vacations don’t count, if we’re honest, because somebody has to be the travel agent, the concierge, and the curator of everyone else’s good time. I’m owning my bias here, but I see you nodding.
So I did what I do. I went to the research. And what I found convinced me that my daughter was more right than either of us knew. Play isn’t the dessert of a well-run life, and it isn’t a reward we collect once the list is finished. It may be one of the oldest coping tools human beings have ever had — and it matters most, not least, in seasons as heavy as this one.
In this week’s episode, I’m making the whole case. What a real laugh actually does inside your body — and it’s not what you’d guess. Why laughter keeps showing up in the places we’d swear it doesn’t belong, and why that’s part of the love, not a betrayal of it.
An answer for the woman who’s certain she just isn’t the playful type. And a phrase I’ve fallen completely in love with that might change your ordinary Tuesdays. I’ll let the episode tell you the rest.
The bell is ringing, friend. It’s been ringing this whole time.
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