Finding Laughter
With so much heartache and hatred filling the atmosphere like poison, I’ve promised myself to find whimsy or laughter as a daily antidote—both, if I’m really on a roll. Seeing past the headlines, the aches and pains that come with living seven-plus decades, and worries about career and family feels like a mountain to climb, and I’m not sure I’ll always have the emotional strength. But if we’re talking physical effort, a smirk and a frown involve roughly the same number of facial muscles (about 11); so do a deep frown and a wide grin (43). So why not?
Oh, one caveat: my amusement mustn’t come at anyone’s expense—no ha, ha, aren’t they stupid. Extra points if I can laugh at myself.
To no surprise, as I write this, my inner critic says, “You didn’t laugh yesterday, not once. And, uh, find any whimsy recently?”
But, on further review, I did. Last night, I dropped a fork while loading the dishwasher, and the errant utensil skittered into a hard-to-reach spot. “You dreck fool,” I said, indulging in my verbal war against the physical world. That prompted H., at the sink, to burst into laughter, so naturally, I joined her. “Never heard that one before,” she said.
At dinner, she’d told the story of a zookeeper trying to persuade an ostrich to mate with another of its species. Instead, the bird, having imprinted on the keeper over many years, directed its amorous attentions toward the human. A sad comment about animals living in captivity, maybe, and poignant, certainly, but also hilarious—especially if you think about what that mating dance might have looked like.
By the way, the ostrich’s preference for a long-term relationship rather than casual sex strikes me as perfectly reasonable, though the evolutionary drawbacks are obvious.
Last night I was reading a novel about Russian Jewish immigrants to Cuba in the 1920s in which one character refers to a “matzo promise”—quickly made, easily broken. I loved it. Matzo, to be kosher, must take no longer than eighteen minutes from the mixing of the dough through the end of baking. And it’s quite fragile.
I assure you that my promise to find laughter and whimsy will be sturdier than that.