It is fully dark these days by 8:15. I know, because when I
looked outside the other night to see what the kids were doing in the yard, I
could find them only by their voices. And because a few minutes later, the
youngest came in for a headlamp – a tool used normally for camping (or
spelunking), but in this case needed to prolong the game of 2 v. 2 wiffleball
that had started before dinner, taken a second intermission for dessert, and
was now continuing, literally, into the dark of night.
When their California cousins were here near the start of
summer, the kids spent hours running around my parents’ yard with one type of
ball or another. They made up varying teams, mixing and matching the three
California teens and the three New Hampshire pre-teens for whatever the game du
jour was. Often this was kickball. Sometimes the grownups weren’t sure what was
happening, but it was fun to watch.
When the Texas cousins arrived soon after the California
contingent had departed, a whole new gaggle of kids took to playing made up
games or some variation of soccer – played barefoot and usually with the
littlest kids tending the goal – or hide-and-seek or capture the flag. They
must have run miles all those evenings, across my in-laws’ wide lawn, oblivious
to the glorious mountain views beyond them, just focused on the game.
When they play on their own, kids get to make up the rules –
and they have to referee themselves. Generally, they figure it out relatively
peacefully. But my kids – and others – can be uber competitive: sometimes there
are squabbles. Sometimes someone stomps away in frustration, but that someone
always ends up back in the mix eventually. Nobody wants to miss out on the fun
for long.
A couple of weeks ago, when the out-of-town cousins were all
long gone, I was finishing up the dinner dishes when I saw my older daughter
run out of the garage with a pair of clippers and a metal rake. Sitting on the
front porch with my husband a few minutes later, I watched the kids far up in
the front field, moving around by one of the large maple trees there.
Eventually, the two girls careened partway down the driveway
on bikes, dismounted to grab a couple of large-ish birch branches fallen
nearby, and lugged them all the way back up to the maple tree. As we watched
the kids move around near the tree, into and out of the woods nearby, we
wondered what on earth they were doing.
We agreed, though, that it didn’t really matter. They were
outside. They were working together instead of arguing (which, believe it or
not, happens a fair amount). They were using their brains and their bodies. We
let them be until the gathering darkness made it hard to see them, then called
them in for bedtime.
They were building a fort, they said, and they continued the
mission the following day before moving on to the next spontaneous,
unstructured summer thing.
This week’s impromptu, hours-long, into-the-dark wiffleball
game came after three of the four kids playing had spent a full morning at
middle school orientation and two more hours at soccer practice. It came in the
waning days of summer – and, perhaps (as much as I hate to admit it), in the
waning days of childhood.
It seemed unimportant that it was late and that it was fully
dark outside. Next week brings the start of the school year and the return to
more structure – classes, sports, homework – another year in the march toward
adulthood.
For this late-summer night, I wanted to let them play as
long as they could.
Original content by Meghan McCarthy McPhaul, posted to her blog, Writings From a Full Life. This essay also appears as Meghan's Close to Home column in the August 23, 2019 issue of the Littleton Record.