Child’s Play

When I was a tiny-little kid, I self-organized a Snoopy Club for my close friends and me. We each picked our favorite Peanuts’ character, and I self-determined that mine was Snoopy (hence the name for our crew).

I can’t recall all the details of what we did, but I for sure remember that we adhered to a serious culture of solidarity and security, especially when intentionally engaging in all sorts of clandestine troublemaking and lawbreaking (the kinds of mischief that tiny-little anarchic kids do when they are allowed to run free and wild around the neighborhood and nearby downtown, and already have a sense, albeit not fully formed, of right and wrong, good and bad). But we also created collective spaces for others to join in, like scripting and performing outdoor performances (in our characters) under a “stage” of trees for whoever wanted to watch.

We already knew it was possible to think and act for ourselves, and take direct action to carve out a world that seemed much more magical and ethical than the one that daily confronted us. It was playing, of course, yet play is the stuff of dreaming about other lifeways, other potentialities, unfettered by those who are old and bitter of heart telling you what is and isn’t permissible or realizable.

So today, on my playful ramble without aim through the stolen streets of Tio’tia:ke/Montreal, when I saw this tiny-little hand-drawn sticker, it brought me back to memories that in hindsight, make a lot more sense in terms of where I landed politically later in life, now for life—and hopefully still play.

#AutonomousCommunitiesAreBeautiful #ACAB #SnoopyNotStates #PupsNotPolice #CaninesNotCops #TryAnarchismForLife