Thanksgiving was only two weeks ago,
yet seems a longer time than that as, as once again, we are reeling in the wake
of senseless violence. The overwhelming horror and frequency of these events
make us feel fearful and helpless. As our nation, and the world, works to find
solutions, we all do what we can in our own circles. For me, sharing laughter
is not a way to lessen the seriousness of recent events or ask anyone to ignore
them. It is a way for us to lift our spirits and lower our stress and fear in
order to go on with our daily lives. It helps us feel closer to each other and
find a common ground. As Alan Alda said, "When people are laughing, they
generally are not killing each other." May our laughter help this come to
be true. In that spirit, I share with
you the laughter I have found in the past two weeks:
On Thanksgiving, family members
gathered at my sister’s house. Another sister and her husband came up from
Virginia. A nephew drove in from Kentucky. Another nephew, on leave from the
Marines, was there. Also, my daughter from Philadelphia, two nieces from right here
in New Jersey, another niece from Pennsylvania, a complement of significant
others and a baby who represented our growing family. Missing from the throng,
but still close via text and phone, was a niece stationed in Pearl Harbor, my
son and his family out in Iowa and my daughter and her family spending their
holiday with her husband’s side of the family. These gatherings are a time for
laughter, storytelling and lots of great food. This year, we played a word and
drawing game around the table and laughed so hard we cried. I was reminded of
how much the family has bonded with laughter over the years. I went home with a
sore belly and a happy heart.
Days later I was working on a project
to clean out my storage shed and find things suitable to take to auction. I
opened a lot of boxes that brought back smiles and memories. One toy, a Disney
playset from the Lion King was in perfect condition. I brought it over to my
New Jersey grandchildren and was delighted to see them play with it, laughing.
It was as much a gift to me as to them.
On the day of the terrorist attack in
San Bernadino, I was booked to speak about Laughter Wellness at a Lawyer’s
dinner. The tragedy was still unfolding as I was getting ready. I felt
tentative about the appropriateness of a laughter presentation on such a
day. The knowledge that mass shootings and other violet acts seem to be occurring almost on a daily basis weighed heavily on me. I often add some of my own feelings
and experiences after 9-11 to these talks and mention how laughter is a healing
force, even in grief. I remembered how Viktor Frankl wrote that laughter and
humor helped those in concentration camps endure. Still, I was feeling unsure.
I checking in, via the Internet, with colleagues at the Association for Applied
and Therapeutic humor and got some wonderful advice and support. I took my own
advice about “smiling even when you don’t feel like it,” and ended up having a
wonderful experience with over 50 participants.
The next day was the auction, and I
drove my boxes of stuff to the auction house. On the way, my toll ticket for
the turnpike fluttered down from the visor, floated past the side of my head
like a feather, and disappeared into the piles of auction stuff. I knew that
stopping to search for it at the tollbooth would cause nightmarish tollbooth
traffic jam complete with honking horns and impolite hand gestures aimed in my
general direction.
So, I pulled into a rest area,
expecting to find the toll ticket between the seats. It wasn’t there. It wasn’t
on the floor of the car in front of the passenger seat or driver seat, and not
under the driver seat. I now realized that I was going to have to take some
boxes out of the front seat and some off the floor in the back to search more
crevices. To add to the fun, it was also
raining.
Finally, I spotted the toll ticket,
under the passenger seat, standing on its side, wedged into the seat bottom.
How it had performed this acrobatic trick was a mystery. It was out of reach
from both the front and the back of the seat, unless I did one thing. That one
thing was to kneel down in the parking lot, and put my arm and my head inside
the car in the space left in front of the back seat by the folded down back of
the seat. This placed me in a precarious position with the possibility of
getting stuck with my backside jutting from the side of my car while rain
poured down. Fortunately, I didn’t get stuck (thank goodness for my recent
weight loss!).
When I finally arrived at the auction
house, I parked my car and wheeled everything inside and started setting up. After a while someone began shouting for the
owner of a grey car. My car. My car that was somehow now sitting in the middle
of the street in front of the building, blocking traffic. The driver of a big
truck was scowling and looking for the idiot in the room who owned the car. OK,
my mind is not so bad that I actually left my car like that. But apparently, I
hadn’t pulled the emergency brake up high enough and left my 6-speed car in
neutral — the perfect recipe for a freewheeling car. The rest of the people setting up their
tables at the auction had a good laugh when I returned and told them what had
happened. And since there was no damage
done, it was easy to laugh at myself.
Since that day I have been doing my
best to balance the tears that often result from the seemingly unending assault of bad news with smiles and
laughter; either at the real absurdities occurring in my own life, or — as we
learned in Laughter Yoga and Laughter Wellness — laughing for “no reason” just
for the health of yet.
