I Got to Play

It was a hot day.

My body cannot regulate temperature well, so I had slept through the hottest part of the day and woke sometime around 4 p.m. When I finally went outside to take Toffee on her potty break, there was a playground ball sitting in the grass.

I assume some neighborhood kids had been playing with it and left it there.

And I got excited.

Because when I looked at the ball, I realized something:

I had enough capacity to play.

So I did.

The ball was very light. I could kick it a little way across the grass, walk over to it, and kick it again. Nothing dramatic. Tiny bursts. A few steps at a time.

But I was playing.

I was laughing.

Toffee could not have cared less about the ball. She remained attached to me by her leash while conducting the far more important business of sniffing every interesting piece of grass she could find.

So we each had our activity.

She sniffed.

I played.

Every few minutes, I stopped and sprayed myself with water.

Because my body cannot cool itself through sweating, spraying water onto myself is one of the ways I can help my body release heat. It was still a hot afternoon, and if I wanted to keep playing, I also had to keep taking care of my body while playing.

So that became part of it too.

Kick the ball.

Walk a little.

Laugh.

Stop.

Spray myself with water.

Cool down.

Then kick it again.

I think I played for about ten minutes.

Eventually I had to stop because Toffee had had enough of my side quest—we were there for her potty break, of course.

But before I went inside, I looked at the ball and thought:

When I can afford one, I will get one of these.

Not because it would help me achieve something.

I want one because I want to play.

The ball required very little strength from me, but it gave me an enormous amount of joy.

And I started imagining having one inside the house. Something light enough that, when my body has a little capacity, I might be able to kick it across a room and go after it. Something that lets movement become play instead of another task my body has to complete.

That afternoon, for ten minutes in the grass, I wasn’t measuring how far I could walk.

I wasn’t only completing a necessary task.

I was just a person outside with her dog and a ball.

Playing.

And for those ten minutes, I felt free.