Actually, I'm not entirely sure what did happen. Life happened, for sure, in all the ways that life has to absorb me. I have a particular habit of delving into the important thing of the moment and diving into it sometimes at the expense of other important things. I do it, I read and research about it, I talk about it, I want to hear from others about it. It's a laser focus that can get too narrow before I feel the mastery I like and resurface. Then I look around and see that more time has passed than I realized (loss of a sense of time is part of my narrow focus), I get genuinely amazed and I reconnect with what else is still important. Very important but now part of a bigger world for me.
I've been wrestling with whether or not to share this since I wish it were something more momentous or worthy somehow, even tragic, that has involved me, but instead I've been involved in the world of gaming. Specifically a game my grandson introduced me to called Dragonvale on the iPad. I was only able to blog sporadically anyway in dial up land where my daughter's family lives and where I spent two months. I had time available to live their life and to play. I'd been looking for a way to connect with my grandson in his great love for gaming but couldn't really understand his fascination with the ones I'd seen up until this game.
Dragonvale has it all- clearing Islands, building habitats, breeding dragons, including special or seasonal dragons, planting food to grow the dragons, landscaping and decorating the Islands, making decisions and planning for who, how and where to maximize finances to be able to best develop this world. I got obsessed, shut down other things, and thoroughly enjoyed this wonderful process of world building. It's graphically beautiful, highly imaginative and just plain fun. I talk to my grandson multiple times a week about our strategies and results, I email my niece who's also involved, even my daughter works with her son making dragon decisions and cheers us on.
Island 1:
Island 2:
Island 3:
Island 4:
But I look at my last post's date and can't quite believe this much time has passed. I've reached mastery in Dragonvale, I want to get back to writing. It's been too long and there's lots more to share. Gaming vs writing- oh god, does that make me shallow? Is it unseemly at my age? Oh well, there it is.
Are any other closet gamers out there? How are you connecting with your grands?
