Unshaken Wonder: Becoming Playful Elders Together

I feared that I’d never get there. To Unapologetic Playfulness Land. Lori’s own Promised Land. Maya Angelou got there. Gandhi got there. The Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, and even writer Anne Lamott got there. My friends Bernie DeKoven, Bayo Akomolafe, and Natalie Kinsey the tree-haired wonder got there. Even Mom got there, thanks in large part to her Alzheimer’s disease.

But could I get there? Could an angry, burned out person who felt unwilling and unprepared to become a family and community elder—a person who often felt like burning the world or at least its elected leaders to the ground—become a playful elder?

I followed these questions away from the serious, city-dwelling researcher self that I’d been until I became an island-dwelling artist who knows that people are actually brave and fun and even hilarious every chance they get. I know now that wonder is within me, it’s all around us, and that we humans can be playful in the face of anything. And I do mean anything...

What does it take to become a playful elder today? What does it take to encounter wonder daily? What does it take to reconnect with the wonder at our core during times of increasing polarization, isolation, exhaustion, and anger and when confronted by pain, death, injustice, and horror? And what exactly is unshaken wonder—the wonder that appears to sit at the core of playful elders around the world? I suspect that to feel unshaken wonder you must be ready to unlearn much of what the old you thought was true. That you must be ready to open yourself up to new possibilities, people, and ideas again and again. Ready to let go of what doesn’t matter in this moment in favor of what matters most to those fully present and together, right now.

Are you ready?