Designed to Play
This is the first With Love Archive post by contributing writer Elisa Nguyen, a journalist and editor based in Toronto. Subscribe to our Substack to receive more newsletters that spark creativity, intentionality, and to hear from our community!
Midday light seeped through the cafe’s windows and spotlighted the brown coloured planner on the table between us. As Doris told me more about what she had been up to, and our potential collaboration, I mused at how With Love Archive (WLA) came to me at the perfect time.
Earlier this year, WLA founder Doris Wu reached out to meet for coffee in the city where we first became friends in university. We had been close friends pursuing studies in psychology. Emulating timelessness and classic beauty, Doris always came to classes prepared with organized, aesthetic notes. She stayed soft-hearted no matter what life brought her way. Our reconnection showed me that she had stayed true to herself all these years. She had a quiet confidence in what she believed in and strived for, something I really admired as I tried to piece together my own life.
I had just quit my full-time job as a reporter at a community newspaper. It was such a great experience but overtime I began itching to try something new. After quitting, I spent several weeks near the beach in Southern California, where I started a newsletter called Fountain Valley to figure out who I am as a writer and explore writing as a form of play.
After writing a few posts, I quickly realized that play was like a second-language I barely used. I was still concerned with people’s perception of me, I feared being seen, and I was terrified of making the wrong choices especially since my 20s felt like the building blocks for the rest of my future.
WLA was an extension of Doris’ personal commitment to dream, to make the most of each day, to embrace creative evolution, to believe in limitless possibilities. She created an A5 planner that she wanted to use herself, a planner that would allow innovators to organize their dreams on minimal planner inserts designed to be personalized to their unique vision for life.
Despite all the years that had passed, Doris and I quickly caught up like no time had passed. She listened to me patiently as I told her about what had been going on in my life and instilled hope and belief for better days to come through the planner she created. I felt inspired by the heart of WLA and couldn’t believe that my old friend had created something that embodied everything I needed at that moment. Grace. Intention. A life of playful exploration as we became the truest forms of ourself. Beyond the beautifully designed tools, knowing that I had a friend, a community, of people on the same journey meant everything to me.
Jumping into my new endeavour to write for fun, I used the Coffee Coloured Planner and Minimal Planner Inserts to document everything related to the Fountain Valley newsletter. I captured my creative process and evolution on milky white paper, taking notes on article ideas, topics that people suggested I write about, quotes about the creative process, and even observations at the beach.
I never had the neatest writing (as my mom tells me often, I write like a doctor but without the degree). Doris encouraged me to use the planner whatever way I wanted and not worry about staying in the lines. She said that the lines were not meant to hold my ideas back but to help me dream bigger.
If I had to choose, my absolute favourite is the weekly insert. There, under Things that Inspired me This Week and Things I Loved from the Internet This Week, I had a weekly reminder to have an open heart and mind to things that spark awe and wonder in me. It was also a designated space that served as an archive of starting points for my next article. If I ever felt creatively stuck, these columns gave me hope that fresh perspectives would eventually come.
“We keep ourselves busy to the point of exhaustion, but we’re also languishing. We feel a little bit dead inside… Making sure that I’m having fun has made me a better partner, a better parent, and a better friend… And the more often we experience it, the more we will feel like we’re actually alive.” - Catherine Price
Children have designated playtimes to foster creativity and friendship, but somewhere along the way to adulthood, it’s easy to believe that play is frivolous or silly. I’m so grateful because in my friendship and collaboration with Doris, she has inspired me to experience child-like delight to all aspects of life, whether in work or passion projects, or in the mundane. It makes those endless days in the school yard feel less far away.
Creating an outfit that expresses who I am and how I feel is one of my current favourite ways to play. The limitation encourages me to find creative ways to style myself—a personal and authentic process that taps into adult imagination. I love to wear dresses in particular. Lately, I’ve been learning about my colour palette and enjoy timeless, elegant, and feminine looks. To save money, I prefer thrifting clothes or shopping in my mom’s closet (with her permission). My favourite place to buy used clothing is Plato’s Closet.
Another day, on my dusty shelves, I found a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W50 from the early 2000s. I replaced the battery and was surprised to find it still worked. Using my new toy, I captured candid photos at my friend’s wedding, a new creative outlet apart from writing that still aligned with my love for savouring the little moments. It reminded me that we don’t need the latest equipment to infuse our life with play.
I turn 25 this year—a number that the little girl building snow forts in the school yard only dreamed of. Not knowing what my future holds sometimes makes me feel like I’m falling behind. It’s tempting to work harder, faster, and smarter in order to survive just like my Vietnamese immigrant parents did—but I resist. I believe that there is beauty all around us even when life gets hard. So I slow down, linger, and savour the present.
In friendship and adulthood, we have the agency to choose what type of relationship or life we want to create. While I still don’t have all the answers to what my future holds, I’m grateful that on some seemingly random day, Doris and I crossed paths again at what felt like the perfect time. Since then, I’ve gotten to write more on my personal newsletter and here, learning that writing as a form of play is about what it feels like rather than what it looks like. It’s not about the number of words produced or how many readers I attract—it’s about doing it because I can, writing for the sake of writing, to give myself relief from those stories that linger in my mind, demanding to be told, and knowing that I have the opportunity to write, not the obligation to write.
And on this journey of self-discovery, play helps me see what truly lights me up—which are the clues to discovering who I was made to be as a writer, friend, daughter, and woman.
Now, I’d love to hear from you. What are some things that spark child-like delight in your own life? Please let us know in the comments!
“The play deficit” essay by Peter Gray, psychologist and research professor at Boston College
Style as a form of play. Thoughts by Harriet Hadfield
“Why having fun is the secret to a healthier life” TEDTalk by Catherine Price