Happy Birthday Aldo! Happy Birthday Blog!

"Whatever space and time mean, place and occasion mean more."  ~Aldo van Eyck

So today, March 16, Aldo van Eyck would be 93 years old.  And this blog is 3 years old, started (serendipitously, because I didn't know it then) just a couple of days after, on March 18.   I thought at the beginning that maybe I would post for about three months and stop, because that was all the material I had, all that I had been able to find deep in google search pages about playgrounds that were different and interesting; interesting enough to keep track of and think that someone else might want to see them too. 

But happily I'm still writing--often, as right now, late at night, after work, still in the lab, watching the ion beam and thinking about playgrounds.  Which is what it takes to keep a one-person volunteer blog going when it has grown way beyond any reasonable expectation.   When I started the blog, it was months before I had a single reader, and even after a year I was only running maybe a hundred people a day.  There has been no big moment--I never got picked up by notcot or swissmiss or heralded on huffpo--just a gradual gathering of people who care about play, and who know we need to do better by it, and who feel, often intuitively without knowing exactly why or how, that play is better when the space for play is better, and who somehow find their way here, because that's exactly how I felt when I started the blog though now I think I know a little more of the why and the how.

But for a blog with this many readers, I don't get so many comments (big shout out to the exception to that rule, my faithful commenter Michelle!) and I do occasionally endure the unkind email from someone who doesn't like playscapes, or feels threatened by what I do, or has sent me something that I haven't gotten to post or respond to yet.  Such is the internet.  SO, if playscapes has helped or inspired you in any way from these last three years, I would love to hear about it.  Especially if you did something different, or advocated for a better playground space, because of what you saw here.  Seriously.  It would warm the cockles of my heart.  

To help you to overcome your natural shyness, dear readers, I have two of the fabulous books about Aldo van Eyck's playgrounds as inducement.  Yes, that expensive one under the reading list in the sidebar.  One will be awarded, at random, to someone who leaves a comment attached to this post.  The other will be given, at random, to someone who posts in the new PLAYSCAPES FORUM...a venue for those who make space for play!   (Get to it by clicking on the 'playscapes forum' at the top of the blog page.)

I've wanted for a long time to bring you all together as a community, and am so excited to launch the forum, and really hopeful that it will be a place of active discussion and engagement.  To be eligible for the book, you can comment in one of the sub-forums or topics I've created or simply leave a greeting or suggestion about the forum (yes, suggestions please!)  in reply to my 'welcome' message.   If you have a play area that was inspired or helped by something you saw here, please add it to the 'post your playscape' section (the whole forum supports photos and video) and I'll do a mashup of the submissions!

With your indulgence, I'll be reflecting all this birthday week on some things I've learned since starting the blog, on where I think playground development is at and where it's going, and on what I'm hopeful for.

'Til then, see you in the forum.  Happy Birthday Aldo!  Happy Birthday Blog!

P.S. As I note in the forum I have to do my own tech support and I'm rubbish at it so if anything goes wrong with the launch please be patient!

P.S.S. To be eligible for the book giveaway, make your posts by the end of this week (Saturday, March 19, MY midnight, which is US CST).  And yes you can post BOTH in the comments and the forums, if you'd like, to give yourself two chances.