In Celebration of Skylarking

I was up ear­ly, time to watch the sun rise and eat some Belizean fry jacks stuffed with goat cheese and refried beans before I met my yoga stu­dents for our ear­ly morn­ing prac­tice. It being 6 AM at a resort filled with vaca­tion­ers sleep­ing in, it was always only me and the sweet wait­ress Marie.

Marie refilled my cof­fee cup and asked what my plans for the day were. I told her I was teach­ing a yoga class and then planned to, “just see what the day brings.” 

“Ah,” she nod­ded. “Skylarking.”

With her Belizean patois, it sound­ed like skee LURKing. She must have noticed my con­fu­sion, so she clar­i­fied. “To endeav­or in shenani­gans.” I smiled, com­plete­ly charmed. When I googled “skelurk­ing and shenani­gans,” I real­ized she was say­ing sky­lark­ing, a new word for me.

Skylarking means to frol­ic about or indulge in horse­play. Skylarking is goof­ing off, lol­ly­gag­ging, dil­ly-dal­ly­ing, behav­ing in tom­fool­ery. The ety­mol­o­gy of the word is unclear, but it may have orig­i­nal­ly been a naval term, sailor’s slang for rough­hous­ing high up in a ship’s rig­ging, sky­larks being known for their joy­ful singing while hov­er­ing high in the air. 

Whatever its his­to­ry, it’s a great word and a mes­sage I can real­ly get behind. Last week’s To Do list includes run pay­roll, send spread­sheet to tax guy, resched­ule gui­tar, pay Izzie’s rent,  fill pre­scrip­tion, drop off box­es to UPS, and research HRT.  I am putting myself to sleep just mak­ing this list, just day after day of ses­sions and yoga class­es and clean­ing and chores and errands, nary a shenani­gan in sight. 

When did my life grow so dire and seri­ous? I am a very cere­bral per­son and am prone to let­ting deep, seri­ous thoughts dri­ve the bus. I need more sil­ly, more spon­tane­ity, more shenani­gans. More skylarking. 

We all know that play can boost our cre­ativ­i­ty, sharp­en our sense of humor, and help us cope bet­ter with stress. It opens the imag­i­na­tion and invig­o­rates the soul. 

It feels like I’ve lost my capac­i­ty for sil­ly. I need to light­en up. I’m start­ing by build­ing in some sky­lark­ing time in my cal­en­dar. I made a Dance Break Mix to inspire move­ment, gath­ered some craft sup­plies for some unstruc­tured art time, bought a new jour­nal that will hope­ful­ly inspire me to write more. 

My time here is lim­it­ed, so I may as well enjoy the ride a lit­tle more.