this doesn’t really need a whole heck of a lot of other words. suffice it to say, we’ve been there. the days of old – or is it days of yore? – are over. the days of driving with venti starbucks at our sides are over. the days of driving without stopping are over. the days of toodling along with no cares in the world are over.
we are rest area junkies. we know where they are – those familiar blue signs on the interstate. we know which rest areas have the nicest bathrooms. we know the gas stations and convenience stores that have the nicest bathrooms. and we have – more than once – exceeded the speed limit on the exit ramps to these fine amenities. there is no time to spare.
we know that the busy bee in live oak, florida on i-10 rocks and that the sphagnum-moss rest area on the way to door county is clean and safe. we know also that we will “hold it” across montana unless we can find a mcdonald’s and that, even in snow, there are portapotties in the rest area just up the road after frisco before vail. in other news, we know the best back roads and where corn grows high, but we won’t talk about that.
i’m guessing, if you are reading this, you get it. there is nothing worse than an hugely-anticipated rest area under construction.
we are each other’s best rant-stoppers. sometimes we can stop it at the gate and sometimes we can just sort of sway the after-effects at the other end of the crescendo. either way, we have found that we are pretty well equipped – specifically balancing for each other – to offer consolation or lighthearted redirection or nudges of positivity or reminders to not get stuck in a maelstrom of yuck. if none of that works, then a midnight bowl of cereal might do the trick.
in the moment it may not be so funny, but, sometimes, looking back on a venting-rant and, always, promises to never-rant-again are pretty doggone hilarious.
i can’t imagine what it would feel like to have written enormously happy screenplays like ‘when harry met sally’ or ‘sleepless in seattle’ or ‘you’ve got mail’. my sweet momma loved the play of meg ryan and tom hanks and billy crystal and, even in face of a double mastectomy at 93, she would watch these movies and she would feel good. nora ephron had feeling good dialed in. her recommendation to “laugh in the face of calamity” is not surprising and deborah copaken’s recent article in the atlantic with snippets of deborah-nora 2011 conversation includes two more of nora’s rules for middle-age happiness: gather friends and feed them and cut out all the things (people, jobs, body parts ) that no longer serve you. these seem to be sage tidbits of wisdom.
when i was younger, there was no shortage of reader’s digest issues in our house. i grew up reading these excerpted and short stories. one of the features was called ‘laughter, the best medicine’. people would submit their own stories for a chance to be published and paid $100. some of these paragraph-stories would elicit a snicker or two, others a real chuckle, though i don’t remember ever out-and-out guffawing. i suppose guffawing is not so young-girl-like; perhaps i should substitute another word. regardless, they were clean jokes and real-life experiences of people that were there to make you laugh. i loved watching my mom and dad laugh over them.
when i googled reader’s digest, i stumbled across an article about bob carey, a man whose wife has been battling breast cancer since the early 2000s. he, in his hope to help, pulled on a pink tutu and went all over the country having his picture taken to raise money for breast cancer research. there is nothing like a man-who-doesn’t-have-a-tutu-body in a pink tutu struttin’ his stuff in the middle of new york city or at the grand canyon to make you laugh. his honoring his wife linda through the tutu project he embraces her spirit, her courage and the power of laughter in their lives. it’s good stuff, this laughing.
laughter triggers physical and emotional changes in our bodies. even a smile elicits goodness in our own selves, relaxing stress muscles, encouraging others around us to relax. it’s the reason i will always start a concert with a story that will likely make people laugh, a story of vulnerability, even a self-deprecating story. a relaxed audience is a participatory audience who has been invited in. there’s no second chance to make a first impression.
my sweet momma would have been good friends with nora, had she had the chance. she would have applauded bob carey in his pink tutu, had she seen him. the sound of her laugh and the dancing light in her eyes stay with me.
in the words of pablo neruda, “…deny me bread, air, light, spring, but never your laughter for i would die.”
sweet laughter. like the whisper of words of your beloved or a gentle kiss to the top of your head, the laughter of your beloved.
there is a book i haven’t read yet – by richard cohen, about nora ephron. it is called ‘she made me laugh’. can you imagine a better legacy?
there is no question – whatsoever – that i lay awake inthemiddleofthenight waaay more than he does. i ponder and wonder and fret and worry and perseverate and plan and make lists and sigh and re-start the cycle over again. i lose sleep over things that are troubling me and during times of discontent. it is impossible for me to not carry these concerns into sleep – it’s disquieting and, most definitely, interruptive.
on the other hand, it takes david about six seconds to fall asleep and – perish the thought – stay asleep. there is little to no tossing, turning, blankets-on-ing-blankets-off-ing, staring-at-the-ceiling, looking-at-the-clock. somehow it is possible for him to empty-his-mind-of-all-troubles and just sleep.
there’s so much truth in this. the red wine. the adirondack chairs. the ‘what are you thinking about?’ the sky-gazing. the existential amazement. the mars and venus. the hot flash. yes, yes. so.much.truth. yup. uh-huh. nothin’ more to say here.
once upon a time in the middle of the forest there was a may apple village. canopies of verdant green umbrella-ed a world of little tiny beings living little tiny lives. the village went on and on, deep into the trees. if you got right down on the ground and looked underneath all those canopies you would be amazed at what you saw, er, imagined. the village doesn’t last long. it appears and then disappears, showcasing short-lived flowers blooming and then going dormant in the summer. and the little tiny beings move on.
it is in my nature to try and make people laugh. i want to hear them giggle, guffaw, snort. i want to see cheer on their faces and to know they are amused by some self-deprecating thing i said or some story i told or some weird-action-that-would-instantly-embarrass-my-kids thing i did. i am not afraid to talk for my dog, skip in the airport, talk to strangers in elevators or subways or grocery lines, or make up loud songs-with-his-name i would sing to my cat. the reason i adore rehearsals is the chance to see people, in community, laughing. it’s never about perfection. it’s always about joy.
and so it was pretty darn weird to be on an interview call recently during which … no one laughed. i was stunned by this. i could not elicit one snicker, not even a draw-breath-in-breathe-out-a-soft-‘haha’. it concerned me. after six decades on the planet, i understand seriousness, job dedication, commitment to work. after six decades on the planet, i also understand the best way to get things done is in joy. the big picture. short-lived flowers.
the little tiny may apple village was bustling the other day in the woods. i could see tiny bistro tables and chairs, tiny beings milling about laughing and getting things done. the community was aware of all the work it had to do in the short period of time the encampment – and they – would be there. they were not overwhelmed; they were not undone. they realized that they were each spokes in relationship in the big-picture-wheel.
and they – these tiny beings under their awning-of-green – realized that their mirth was the thing that held the leaf-canopies open and kept things in motion, that kept them sharing and working with each other, through the burdens and the successes, that kept them from being divided and, instead, made them a community of inclusion, exuberant and productive, making their tiny mark.
creativity is not always a serious thing. songwriting isn’t always serious. today we offer you the attempt we made on washington island to record our brilliant and profound song SITTING HERE IN THE SUN. we understand, with 7 takes, if you can’t bear to watch it all. and we understand if you are underwhelmed by the song (not to mention the angle of video recording) – when you finally get there. but right now – at the very beginning of a new year and a new decade – we are thinking maybe the laughter is the most important song of all.
once upon a time, a geometric rug found its way onto our doorstep. it was carried in and put in the dining room, where all rolled-up geometric rugs go. it was The Boy’s rug and it would wait for The Boy to come get it. Rug waited and waited. until one day, The Boy came. Rug got excited. it knew it was going to go with The Boy and be his Rug. but The Boy gathered all the other large boxes in the dining room, which had become a holding ground for deliveries, and Rug heard him start his car and drive away. Rug panicked, thinking perhaps he had done something wrong, perhaps he wasn’t wanted. and so he sat, sad and alone, the only delivery left in the dining room, all rolled up and despondent.
until one day when we came home from the island. we walked in, carrying boxes and bins, unloading them in, of course, the dining room. there, leaning up against the cabinet, was Rug. sorrowful, lonely, dejected, left-behind Rug. i looked at the label on Rug and saw that it belonged to The Boy and so i assured Rug that we would bring him home.
like all other weird things we seem to get ourselves involved in, we decided to take the train to deliver Rug to The Boy. we could have driven directly to his door in the big city, but for reasons hard to comprehend, we picked up Rug and carried him onto the train. all three of us disembarked from the train and Rug and i looked at the gps on my phone. a beautiful day, it was only 2 miles to walk to the front door of The Boy’s place. and so, off we went. happily scampering down the sunny sidewalks of the city, a big triangle grin on Rug’s face as he anticipated his new home. we took Rug into a grocery store and rode up and down on an escalator, adventuring together. back on the street, people gawked at us walking with Rug, for it is clearly not often enough that people take rugs for a walk. when at last we got there, The Boy carefully unpackaged Rug and laid him on the floor, next to the new couch and under the new coffee table. we left Rug to uncurl and went to lunch.
in the pouring rain, walking the two miles back to the train, we talked about our next adventure. and we hoped that Rug was adjusting well.
every time you think you have it all figured out, life has a way of poking fun at you, pulling the rug from underneath you, making you re-evaluate, maybe roll your eyes, maybe cry out and push back, maybe giggle in abandon.
the island players performed a short at TPAC from spoon river anthology (e. l. masters), a collection of epitaphs spoken as monologues by the deceased residents of the fictional town called spoon river. it is gripping. a not-so-subtle reminder of our brief time on this earth and the absolute into-thin-air-ness of our lives. perspective-arranging, yes, as you listen to the tales of each person, ephemeral, transitory, all fleeting moments in a deep milky way of vast time.
one of the characters, a finely and properly dressed older woman, brags of renting a house in paris, entertaining the elite, dining at fine restaurants, taking the cure at baden-baden, a spa town in germany’s black forest. she returns to her hometown of spoon river, only to realize that no one really cares about where she dined or what she ate or who she entertained or if she took the cure at baden-baden. a sobering moment for her and, if you let it in, another one of those lessons. the kind where you realize that what you do and what you have is – not – who you are.
instead, the dust of us will later snicker, laugh, out and out guffaw at how invested we all were in the things of life that didn’t really count, the things that will disappear into the outer atmosphere of the universe, never to be retrieved. instead, we should chuckle now, realizing that indeed the best-laid plans are only that. plans. that doesn’t make them life. life has its own ideas. perhaps we should just remember that, cut ourselves a bit of slack and recognize how funny it really is that each of us, formed of zillions of random cells, somehow ended up here, right here, right now. for this time.
we have no problem playing. take our sweet boy chicken marsala, for example. you may remember this. chicken was born when we were taking a roadtrip. we had been driving for about 12 hours or so and were talking about what we would have named a child, had we had one together. we laughingly agreed on “chicken”….”chicken marsala.” don’t ask us why; neither of us has the answer. maybe it was road delirium. regardless, chicken has stayed with us since then. we even carried a flat-chicken across the country a couple years ago, taking pictures of him with rest area personnel, at points of interest and with various family members. we joke about chicken and me cantering in the fields and d uses his “chicken marsala voice”, making us go into fits of hilarity.
no matter the age, no matter the relationship – parent/child, brother/sister, husband/wife, boyfriend/boyfriend, girlfriend/girlfriend – playing adds moments of immeasurable treasure.
reverse threading 