Daryl Zamora

Daily writing prompt

Do you play in your daily life? What says “playtime” to you?

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I’m joining WordPress’ Blognuary series as an exercise to get my writing back to shape. I spent the last two weeks enjoying the holidays — which is not a bad thing at all — but I’ve somehow lost some of my writing mojo.

So: How do I play in daily life?

This is a thought-provoking question, because I don’t play anything on a daily basis. I know a lot of people can’t get through a day without playing some kind of online or mobile game. I have none of those. I used to play Monopoly Go, Sim City BuildIt, NYT’s crossword puzzles, but soon I got bored of them. I also thought they were a waste of time, especially when I sensed the tug addiction creeping in.

Instead what I do for “play” or leisure now is read books, or watch something on Netflix. But maybe it’s really just the pile of books I haven’t read yet that’s compelling me to take reading as my go-to pastime nowadays. Although, to be honest, social media have been quite the magnets during the holidays, I still feel guilty about drowning in them, sometimes for hours.

Currently I’m reading my first book in the Penguin Little Black Classics: Kenko’s A Cup of Sake Beneath the Cherry Trees. I’ve bought two more books in the series, also by Japanese authors. Just before this book, I was reading Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood. The tide of consumption of Japanese books recently was the result of my trip to Japan last November (it deserves a long ode of a blog post). I’ve fallen in love with traditional Japanese culture and food, and I don’t see the end of this sakura-lined tunnel yet. While it lasts (and I doubt it’s going to end any time soon), I’m just going to give in and lean in.