I’m fresh off my favourite day of the year at our summer encampment in Deep Bay, it’s on BC’s Vancouver Island. It’s the weekend when Silly comes to play at Deep Bay when we had the 12th Annual Deep Bay Duck Race. I remember walking down behind our place and seeing an eighty year old friend of ours, coming toward me holding his Deep Bay Duck Race entry with two hands. The race rules are clear, no propulsion and no sails so he was on his way to ensure rules compliance certification. I told you he was eighty, his body the predictable vestibule for things that ache and break in any eighty year old. But he wasn’t eighty, nope in that moment he was twelve, if even for just few minutes he was the twelve year old boy who had always loved being Silly.

There were about seventy – five entries at this year’s Deep Bay Duck Race, ranging in age from my two year old granddaughter Rowe to eighty-five year olds all of us up to our waist in the tidal pool at the starting line, waiting for the horn to go.

It was so Silly.

And sometimes Silly is the perfect ‘medicine’.

Arguably our world has gone stark raving mad, and with each passing day we feel increasingly out of control most of us assuming some version of darkness is upon us. And that is exactly when we need Silly the most.

We just don’t give Silly enough credit.

When I was in my 20’s I had no time for Silly, it was foolish and a waste of time. After all I had things to accomplish. Even as a young child I can remember being told off by my. parents.

“Don’t be silly Tony!”

Or my friends.

“That’s silly.”

And of course that left me feeling young and immature and one thing I didn’t want to be when I was young and immature was young and immature or even worse thought of as such. So I stopped being Silly and got on with the business at hand of growing up and wrestling with all the grown up stuff that growing up presents over the decades that follow.

I actually don’t know where Silly got such a bad wrap. In the Middle Ages and Medieval times Silly was highly regarded used to describe virtue, bravery, righteousness and innocence. Silly is good and more than that Silly is important. It’s been with us for over a thousand years. Scholars have studied Silly, which in itself sounds Silly, and have identified the first use of the word between 1100 – 1150AD. It meant ‘blissful’ and ‘happy’. I imagine that a spot of bliss or happiness would have been most welcome in that otherwise dark and chaotic world. Stay with me here, I’m still talking about the Middle Ages. I’ll get to 2024 later.

The Court Jester was an honoured, coveted position and it’s not one supposes because they were particularly light hearted times. No those were the days of “off with his head” and “a plague and pestilence be upon you”. None of it was much good for a punch line quite frankly. Back then ‘Off with his head’ was not a Monty Python punchline, it was an instruction. Silly had it’s own Dark Ages. Shakespeare had a character in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ utter “This is the Silliest stuff I have ever heard”. Dickens had a locksmith exclaim “Heaven help this Silly fellow.” Somewhere between 1400AD and nowadays Silly became a negative thing, something ridiculous, something foolish, something to deride, something to tell our children not to be. Of course I get it but Silly can help. It is sometimes why we embrace Silly in the midst of our worst moments.

Now this is where I tell you I’m seventy-four. I do so not to anoint myself with the wisdom that only comes I gather with sore knees and getting up three times a night to pee. No, it is just contextual. Turns out getting older informs everything, including my thinking about being Silly. Funny how these things come full circle.

Where I live in the summertime is unique. The bay itself is crescent moon shaped, lined with about forty trailers and cabanas occupied for the most part by retirees some of whom have been coming to Deep Bay for many decades, their own families now continuing the legacy. It is where Schitt’s Creek meets a seniors home and it is wonderful. It is a place where Silly has taken up permanent residence.

The faces of the residents are creased and marked with the stories of their lives, each one unique and compelling. It seems most of their knees have been replaced, many now working on their hips and ankles. They have tried and failed, loved and lost, they have experienced the thrill of family and suffered the pain of tragedy. They have strived all their lives, achieved much and now find themselves in Deep Bay living among others who have come a familiar path.

As one can imagine, any newcomers to Deep Bay are enthusiastically welcomed, vetted and indoctrinated. If they show a quick laugh, a sense of humour and an appreciation of Silly we quickly anoint them with a nickname. ‘Frank’ just arrived in camp. He is an interesting man, doing something top hush-hush, engineering propulsion systems for the US government. That’s all he would tell us followed by the usual warning.

“Hey, if I tell you any more I’ll have to kill you!”

We all laughed, knowing that he was just being Silly although that laughter petered out as we each individually realized that he may well have meant it.

“Oh, don’t be Silly” he said, as he realized that we might be taking him a wee bit too seriously. And he was in, the only remaining order of business being the Anointment of the Nickname.

“I shall call you The Finn.” I announced.

“But I’m not Finnish, I’m an American” ‘Frank’ responded apparently thinking that sound reason was a match for Silly.

“Yes well, you have a beard and broad shoulders and you’re very tall. When we need to post someone at the front gate to scare off intruders we’re posting The Finn.”

He greeted all of this with a great big hearty laugh. The Finn gets Silly.

And then we solemnly asked the Finn if he would like to be part of the Annual Mounting of The Goat out in the waters of the bay. Our friend Burt Kirby has been Mounting the Goat for some years now, a Caretaker of The Silly if there ever was one. With great ceremony the wooden goat is attached with rebar to a large boulder. Each year the storms inevitably damage The Goat but we all agreed that The Finn would be a great addition to the Mounting Team. He was after all a mechanical engineer. Confirming our group wisdom I can now report that The Goat remained attached throughout the summer, undisturbed even by Mother Nature’s most ferocious efforts. It couldn’t be Sillier and without fail anyone who sees the goat out in the bay smiles or laughs. Some have even exclaimed that The Goat appears to be walking on water although one usually needs a combination of a high tide and wine for that vision to appear.

It is for all that a place where Silly thrives and on days such as the 12th Annual Deep Bay Duck Race it is a place where Silly Rules!

Standing there at the starting line, knee deep in oncoming ocean water, I idly turned to a woman standing beside me and offered, “Silly is so good!”. She politely nodded and replied,

“Micro glimmering. It’s called micro glimmering now.” It wasn’t a punch line, she was glib if anything, making a joke the furthest thing from her mind.

Micro glimmering. Of course it is. I mean why not replace a perfectly good word like Silly with two words. Turns out though it is a thing. ‘Micro glimmering’ are moments that bring on joy and happiness sparking ease, relaxation and a sense of peace were first described by Deb Dana a clinical therapist in her book “The Polyvagal Theory of Therapy”. It’s the scholarship of Silly and learning about it for the first time when I was standing at the starting line of the 11th Annual Deep Bay Duck Race was ironically perfect. And not just a little bit Silly.

Now make no mistake I’m devastated with the results of the race. My grandson Freddy entered what I told him was a sure winner. ‘TerraDUCKtyl’ was a loser from the get go, circling endlessly in the small eddies of the oncoming tide. How ignominious, how deep was my disappointment, yet another year where our best efforts where dashed by the duck of some twelve year old winner.

How Silly is all that. How much fun! It felt great, surrounded as I was by about a hundred knee replacements, twenty hip replacements and ten thousand stories about life and how hard it can be. All of us forgetting for a few minutes at least about our sadnesses, our sore knees and the natural anxieties that come with ageing. And that’s what Silly is. It is a reprieve, an escape, a reminder of a time back when Silly was everywhere, where Silly was so much fun.

“Don’t be Silly!” was wrong then and it is wrong now. It is someone else’s way of judging, of trying to impose themselves upon you. Silly has no purpose, no agenda, no motive, no malice it simply exists as a portal to joy and laughter and it is healthy. It is nobody’s place to adjudicate on that. Now that I am seventy-four I have turned down my hearing aid for those who find me Silly. I have no time for it and I mean that literally, as in I’m running out of time for it, if you get what I mean.

And in any event, if Silly is so bad why do we celebrate and preserve in our minds so many memories of Silly things. ‘Seinfeld‘ a show about nothing was for millions a weekly half hour appointment with Silly. To this day my friends can quote it line and verse.

“What’s the deal with lampshades? I mean if it’s a lamp, why do you want shade?”

Magic. Silly magic.

‘Monty Python’s Holy Grail’ fifty years on now was the height of farce and still sits on the High Throne of Silly.

“Just a flesh wound” Monty Python exclaimed as the Black Knight slashed off his arm during a sword fight.

And Peter Seller’s Inspector Clouseau in ‘Pink Panther Strikes Again?’

“I thought you said you’re dog does not bite!”

“That is not my dog.”

Silly at its best.

As the glorious day came to an end we were on our deck overlooking Deep Bay and I taught my one year old grand daughter Clementine how to play ‘Boo’. It’s the Silliest Game Ever and the perfect way to welcome my grand daughter into the Wonderful World of Silly. My other favourite happens each Christmas at the family table. That is where I have in turn taught each my grandchildren how to suck jello off a plate with their hands behind their back. As with all things Silly a dash of ceremony adds to the moment and in this particular moment, a dash of whipped cream on top of the jello. The timing is very important. At one year of age Clementine just fell forward into the jello and she did not see the fun in that. Perhaps it was the whipped cream.

So ‘Boo’ it was. She loved it.

Silly is timeless.

Silly is fun and it is healthy.

I am Silly.