"Unpacking" by Witch Beam
An (abridged!) list of all the items currently living at the bottom of my 4.5-year-old’s backpack:
A broken pink leopard keychain
A broken sombrero keychain from her former daycare teacher
A 30-year-old figurine of Doc from “Snow White”
A 1-year-old and one-legged figurine of Anna from “Frozen”
An unsharpened New York Mets pencil
A cloth finger puppet meant to look like a chef
A cloth finger puppet meant to look like a ballerina
Two chunky necklaces of questionable provenance
“Pappy’s Happy Bubble Yum”-flavored chapstick
Three tattoos: one green monkey, one that says “Cutie,” and one that says “Angel” (who, why, how????)
Several rocks
A biodegradable straw, still in wrapper
A 10-year-workiversary pin my former employer sent to me one year after laying me off.
Earlier this week, I sat on the stoop with N, the 4.5-year-old, and suggested that it may be time to go through the bag and clear out some of the items. We separated things into two piles. In the trash pile were several broken crayons and Anna’s spare leg. In the keep pile was everything above. “They’re special to me,” she said.
What isn’t? N is a fiend for baubles; anything has the potential to become an heirloom that will live on for generations. And it’s not just that things are kept. Things have their place. In our apartment, the rocks belong in the gallon-sized rock bag, Play-Doh belongs in the middle drawer of the toy complex, and the dolls belong in the upside-down step stool that has served as a doll bed in the corner of my dining room for the last two months because everyone is afraid to disturb it or else we risk incurring N’s wrath.
“Unpacking” is about all this, specifically about what’s worth keeping, and where things belong. As an adult the answers seem straightforward enough. But kids play by a different set of rules.
“Unpacking” is a video game, which I know might put off some of you. But think of it as more of an organization simulator. Your task is simple: unpack some boxes as the protagonist moves from home to home. Inside the boxes are the protagonist’s stuff -- clothing, trophies, knicknacks, etc. -- and you need to decide where to put everything.
“Unpacking” isn’t made for young kids, but it’s ideal for them. You basically only have to press one button (pick things up from the box, put things down where you want them), there’s no fiddly camera, and no twitchy reactions are needed. If you can play a game on your phone, you can play “Unpacking.” It’s just a relaxed excuse to move some pixels around.
For adults, the game’s simplicity belies the moving story of a woman navigating adulthood. As she moves from one place to the next, much of the same stuff comes with her to every stop. But should its place in her life stay constant, too? Where should the stuffed animals go now that she’s got her own place? How long does a Rubik’s cube belong on her desk? And if she’s just hiding her action figures in the closet, does she really need them in the first place?
It’s a great game because it forces adults to confront the decisions they made as they grew older, and whether they want a do-over. I’d recommend you play it whenever you want to think about the passage of time, and whenever you just need to put things in their place.
Kids love the game for different reasons. Namely, the piggy bank needs a home and they can put it wherever they want. In this way, “Unpacking” is similar to “Today,” the book I wrote about in the first edition of Writ Small. It’s all about empowering kids to make the decisions they want to make, even if it leaves behind a mess.
N left a mess. In her protagonist’s post-college apartment, bras are strewn across the bedside table. A soccer ball lives on the desk chair. A pair of boots rests on top of the toilet, and a pair of sneakers lives in the bathtub.
The joy she felt in putting each of those things in their place was impossible to miss. She giggled as the boots went on the toilet seat -- and she should, that’s a great joke. She took her time putting the picture frame in just the right place above the bed. And she picked her favorite t-shirts to put on the hangers in the closet. Her digital room felt like her actual room, with bits and bobs littering every surface and important items hidden behind three layers of nonsense.
When I played the game, my digital room did not look like hers. Nor did it look like my real one.
The boots are arranged just so. There’s an art shelf that collects all the art supplies in one spot. The underwear is in one drawer, folded in such a way that the drawer is actually able to be closed.
This is not how I live. An (abridged!) list of all the items crowding my desk as I type this:
A tea mug that has been sitting here for at least 14 hours
A random flashlight whose batteries no longer work
Five notepads, only one of which I’ve used in the past month
A bunny-ear headband
A 100W lightbulb of questionable provenance
A thermometer whose battery died six months ago
A hex-key set I I can’t throw it out nor return because I broke it after I borrowed it
Seven children’s books (occupational hazard, I suppose)
And I wonder where N gets it.
As I thought about our two different digital organizational approaches, I started to think about the thin line separating imagination and reality for kids and adults alike.
When you first look at N’s “Unpacking” layout you see a certain creativity. There’s a toaster oven on the floor, after all. But to her, things really do just belong wherever she wants them to belong. The chaos in her backpack, or in her pretend kitchen’s cabinet, or in her doll bed’s absurd placement in a room used for an entirely different purpose -- it’s all intentional. This is how she wants to live her life, and it’s how she wanted to play her game.
I’m the one who’s wishcasting by putting everything in an orderly pile. That’s just not how things work when kids are around. The finger puppets belong in the backpack. The boots belong on the toilet. The special things deserve a special place.
That’s a realization worth squirreling away.
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If you’ve ever cried while watching “Toy Story,” then “Unpacking” is the game for you. I haven’t even talked about how satisfying all the little clicky-clacky sounds are when you put an item down. It’s like an ASMR generator for people who dream of an uninterrupted day at The Container Store. If this sounds like your kind of thing, “Unpacking” is available on all the devices, including your phone.
We’ll save my cri de coeur about how video games can be as nourishing for kids as books and are. The best way to eventually read it is to subscribe!
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