Peek-a-boomerangs

abandonment games

Do you play peek-a-boo with contact?

Sometimes directness is difficult. Ali had his rope-a-dope dodges and deflections. Sometimes, when contact is as welcome as a punch in the face, we play peek-a-boo with each other.

Peek-a-boo is our oldest game of excitement and dissipation, of anxiety and soothing. When we played peek-a-boo as babies, our universe, our love, our providers would disappear. Where did they go! Oh my! Will they ever return? As infants, the disapearing raised an alarm.

But then?

Peek-a-boo!

There they are! Just where they were a moment ago.

And that’s one of the earliest ways we learn to sooth ourselves and be soothed by another.

Everywhere you go you’ll find people playing peek-a-boo with each other. Weary and sore from being smacked in the face by abandonment boomerangs, the peek-a-booskies¹ pop in and out of the world playing an endless game of peek-a-boo with the world and themselves.

Sometimes they can be even confused by whose hands are over their face. More frequent…