Being silly is one of the things I love most. Michael Palin, esteemed traveller, once commented that there are two countries where people really know how to be silly: Britain – and Tonga. I would love to hear more about silliness in Tonga, but I did think it was a great starting point.
So why is it so hard to be silly? To take a moment, and engage with it in a funny, upside down kind of way? Because adulthood gets crowded out with to dos, and lists, and how to behave, and being around people you don’t know that well but maybe don’t want to look stupid in front of…
Silly is different from stupid. Silly is inspired. Stupid is generally unthinking. Stupid is doing the thing that doesn’t make sense, and people groan. Silly is doing the thing that doesn’t make sense, isn’t expected, but instead makes people laugh.
I went to the swimming pool with another adult and a couple of kids today. Swimming pools seem to have got a lot more fun since I was the kids’ age. There are large floats that are pretty much rafts, and that can hold the weight of two children. There are medium sized floats that you can dive bomb from the side. There are curly floats called noodles that you can ride on, a bit like a curly hobbyhorse.
What brought delight was the chance to be silly in the water – not in an unsafe way, but in an unexpected, madeyoulaugh kind of way. Chasing after floating toys in a cowboy on horseback kind of way. Throwing a stick shaped float, pretending to be throwing a stick for a dog – and then have the other person bring the float back in their mouth. Standing in front of the ‘fizzy’ inflow pipe that bubbles and seeing what it feels like against the back of your legs.
You know you’ve succeeded in being silly with small people when you get gales of delighted laughter. It’s so intoxicating, you just want to keep going, turn another cartwheel (as it were – but not underwater), turn yourself into a whole troupe of clowns just to see their faces again.
I am actually quite good at being silly. I just need a little encouragement. And an easily amused audience. But what I’m really hoping is that the silliness will permeate memories – theirs, mine – and remain in us as a part of who we are.