Silliness

Smurf

Oh, my gosh.  Do you remember how much of life used to be devoted to combating silliness?  I can still hear the multitude of grownups minding us to sit still, quit that giggling, mind yer manners, or cut that out, and in every case I nearly keeled over from laughing inside.  School, church, the dinner table, grocery store aisles, and the back of the car were all prime for silliness and the squelching of it.

Then I had kids of my own, and silliness abounded again.  I was not good at stifling it, needless to say.  Even now, I just have to look at a kid and I want to start laughing.  That’s why I knew I’d never be any good as an elementary school teacher.  Whenever I went in as a volunteer parent or substitute aide, I just wanted to laugh with everybody or give them hugs, which was so not allowed for boundary reasons.  I was better off teaching in the high school, where I expect I seemed sort of batty and quaint with my little toys all around the upper edges of the room.  I loved that I could laugh really hard several times a day.

Now I don’t have any little kids around, except when I visit my long-distance nieces and nephews, who are experts in silliness.  This is sort of a problem, but not really, because for some of us, silliness can transcend age.  My older kids like to read joke books aloud and play games like foosball, Settlers of Catan, and Rummikub with the family.  If we’re feeling like lazy, lie-down bums, we push the coffee table aside and play the games on the floor.  Once we start laughing, it’s easy to roll, and then that’s funny, too.  Lately, my kids have been randomly echoing a Doppler shift humming noise I happened to make during a game of Solarquest, and each time it cracks us up again.

They say people in offices are more creative when they laugh more.  I think laughing helps me write better, too.  It loosens up ideas and quirky connections so that my mind feels more playful.  Then it works the other way, too, because when my writing’s going well, it brings me joy.