laughter is an audible, forceful exhale. the sound of mirth, the force of humor pushing through whatever doesn’t need to be in your body anymore out of your mouth or maybe nose or maybe corners of your eyes. you buckled over then standing back up, straighter than ever before.
dying laughing kind of like wind howling through the night. wind moving weather through the atmosphere, over the curve of the planet. wind jetting those clouds all the way over there surprisingly quickly for what at first glance looks still.
cool and warm breezes kind of like how much better i felt after you made me laugh so hard, how much more open, and how glad.
wind rustling through the leaves of trees like hehehe, swish, breathing out, or no sound at all like the tears crawling down your cheeks towards your jaw as you shake your head in welcome bafflement.
that was so funny i felt disarmed. i laughed so hard i let go of my grudges like how the wind blew the leaves off the trees and they were actually gorgeous as mountains of color. i laughed so hard i felt forgiven.
how did they know we’d need our own wind to move ourselves through? (the songs yes of course, that note through windpipe from the gut raising those hairs on your arms) but also this silent and loud whirl, how we’re bonded now, exchanging knowing looks as the sound dies back down.
the breath we share with each other, the breath we share with the earth. that the atmosphere, yours and the whole one, can, hilariously, be transformed in an instant.
[SIDE NOTE: i’ve decided this is part 2 of laughter as here’s part 1 ]
OTHER NOTE i am pleased to announce that it’s because it’s on is celebrating THE James Baldwin Centennial all month. re humor / laughter
actress Marianne-Jean Baptiste describes her experience acting in The Amen Corner in the book god made my face, “Baldwin’s language is so rich, and sometimes very poetic or humorous; other times, it brims with pain. It can be tempting to relish each phrase but you have to constantly remind yourself that in order for it to work and be believable, it has to be conversational…….Lucian Msamati, who played Luke, and I would sometimes be doubled over laughing at his lines.”
Toni Morrison, in the eulogy i mentioned last week, writes:
“I suppose that is why I was always a bit better behaved around you, smarter, more capable, wanting to be worth the love you lavished, and wanting to be steady enough to witness the pain you had witnessed and were tough enough to bear while it broke your heart, wanting to be generous enough to join your smile with one of my own, and reckless enough to jump on in that laugh you laughed. Because our joy and our laughter were not only all right, they were necessary.”2
(photo from James Baldwin, remembered by his nephews)
the man offered so much, including a kind of tongue in cheek wisdom that makes me smirk and shake my head (and feel a kind of pride). from the poem, Inventory/On Being 52
My progress report
concerning my journey to the palace of wisdom
is discouraging.
I lack certain indispensable attitudes
Furthermore, it appears
that I packed the wrong things.
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