Succumbing cheerfully

Is there a dentist in the room? I have some questions I couldn’t ask because my mouth was wide open. Why do dentists do this? Does anyone ever answer these questions? How? Also, could you put some art on the ceiling so your patients have something nice to look at?

But to answer the question, just like last year (and the year before) my family and I went to an arts festival/camping for a week. Every year, I discover an entire different version of myself. My incredibly stage shy person even finds herself doing theatre!

It’s wild, how being among people who are all committed to play can change how brave you feel. When I say ‘play’ I’m not referring to theatre or music necessarily. I mean the type of play that children do naturally: letting creativity flow and making things, alone or together, without judgment or expectations. Play can feel scary, because we can’t see what’s on the other end if the slope.

Or as my 14-year old son said the other day…

He might have been talking about wearing jeans instead of sweatpants for the first time in his life, the point is, it requires some bravery to try something new. At this festival, there’s so little time to create something, you often just start with a rough idea and see where it takes you. When you’re working as a group, it can be difficult to navigate different opinions. But during these weeks I’ve experienced a kind of magic I’ve never encountered anywhere else.

That’s why I took some of this to the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre innovation retreat, where we were working on ways to engage people when we discuss climate change and humanitarian work. How can this mindset of play help us come up with new solutions? How can theatre exercises help us feel brave enough to have these really tough discussions? Apart from listening and talking, we improvised, sculpted, played games, danced around with our eyes closed, had a good laugh and connected on a whole different level.

When we talk about something as severe as climate change, it makes sense to put on our serious frowns and have serious conversations. But are we ever really going to empathise with one another when we’ve only connected intellectually? I doubt it. As the organiser of this innovation retreat said:

Boring events, will only bring boring solutions and those just keep falling short.

Just this morning, I read this excellent post by

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson

. Do read the whole piece if you have time, here are some quotes that resonated deeply with me.

I want climate solutions so badly. And while it would be foolish to assume that our story on this planet has a happy ending, every day I wake up, and I think more and more of us wake up, and consider what we can do to manifest that desire, to nudge ourselves closer to a healthy and safe and restored and resplendent life on Earth. For who are we to give up on this planet or one another? We simply do not get to quit. Also, how do we keep moving forward despite the intimidating odds?

So, I encourage you to, in the words of Terry Tempest Williams, “make vows to something deeper than hope.” If not hope, then what? Truth, courage, and solutions. Love. Collaboration and community. And all the sweetness along the way. That’s what can get us there.

When you wake up and think about what you can do, I’d like to invite you to play. We need to let our imaginations run wild and just start. We need to be brave enough to be ridiculous. If we don’t, we’ll just stick to what we deem ‘normal’ and that has brought us to where we are now.

With love,