Laughter is Love's Breath

Laughter is love’s breath and in some cases, love’s absence of breath; when extreme mirth leaves no time or room for inhaling, when tears, for some reason, rush on to the stage of your face, falling over each other in a body pile, stumbling, limbs weak with hilarity. This runaway kind of laughing breaks the rules and leaves the belly with an agenda of total noncompliance, going wherever it wants, commandeering every body part and function for its own purpose.

The very best treasure of life is losing it, when words don’t even have a chance to survive in the deluge of sound gone wild, unbridled joy on a rampage. Trying to escape, phrases explode in to pieces, syllabullus interuptus, creating an entirely new language of the ridiculous. Unaccustomed to the rigors of holding up such a happy face, our cheeks seem to be held hostage, delightfully aching, pushed as close to our eyeballs as they can be.

These bouts of laughter seem to be most often shared with people we love, or at least people we are comfortable with and trust. The relaxation that follows one of these delightful fits can feel as deep as an hour massage and a cranial sacral adjustment. Perhaps, laughing is like a human reset button, most useful in stressful times when our wires are crossed and our circuits have overloaded. We’re more likely to laugh with others than alone, but I find extreme delight when I am pushed to at least giggling, all by myself. My most recent episode occurred yesterday, when after an 16 hour double shift, I arrived home used up, to find my love had made my bed for me, and propped a teddy bear on the pillow, with my reading glasses on, playing a ukulele. The tension of the day released its grip and dropped away when I laughed out loud.

Copyright © Bentley Kalaway 2009