Energy of inquiry

'Isn't anyone playing with us?' A plaintive query hear at the Christopher Columbus play yard by grandson Meja standing stock still watching the big kids play. The game was some variant of the old standby Emergency! that involved much scrambling up and down the apparatus, crawling through storm drain sized pipes, making loud pronouncements into speaking tubes, as well as, inexplicably, scooping and sifting sand.

Meja watched dispassionately as someone might watch, say, rainwater bouncing off a floppy flower, then moved on to what he knew something about, a slope to be run down, a wheel to be turned. He seems to know that what he needs to know next is what intrigues him, be it a pocket, a stick, a curb, a noise-making machine.

He has no stories (but loves drama), no awareness of landscape or architectural space (that I know of) but he can imitate his dad on the play guitar. Most of his experiments are cause and effect investigations with variations: can I do it on one foot? can I do it one more time? can I do it if I take this or that away? There's a drive in him to come to terms with the physical world, perhaps as a basis for more complex learnings later on. Water, for instance, is never-endingly fascinating: poured, splashed, sprayed, felt falling. On a rainy day like today, puddles: into them, stamping, out of them, then turn around to go back in.

He's a prime candidate for games; his grandmother is a master at leading him on. She has a strong developmental sense, a feel for where he is in a child's natural progression of ever richer learning encounters with the world. Beyond this, perhaps just as important, she exhibits a child-like joy interacting with him. I love to watch her work. She feeds him, as if a bird, with morsels--tools, materials, containers--which spur his interest.

The day is coming, of course, when you, Meja, will be among such kids as you watched at the park. You'll understand Emergency! and lots of other narrative forms. You'll understand why the big kids were rushing about and nobody after them. At the same time, your love of cause and effect may have (I hope) evolved into genuine scientific inquiry. Later on, you'll see science and stories interwoven forming the warp and woof of your life. Then, you may also ask, as I do, as many do: 'Isn't anyone playing with us?' Your lifetime of questions is already well begun.