A good laugh

Not so long ago, new and overly exuberant neighbors moved in a couple of houses over. Normally, the neighborhood is a maddeningly quiet place. Makes you feel sometimes that no one actually lives here. Even the young ones keep it pretty decently discreet, a few F words here and there, yelled to feel their Moxy - to say "we are arriving world', see, we can cuss too".

Damnably boorish way to live, if you ask me. Where is the spice, the pizazz, the snap and crackle of it all.

Anyway, these are the bloody noisiest, happiest neighbors anyone had experienced around here for the longest time.

Why...you may ask.

Well, they congregate out in the little community spaces between the parked cars, garages and communal walkways - and very loudly talk and laugh like animals uncaged and free. Almost every evening, disturbing the peace and quiet of a very genteel, upstanding, hushed hood and vicinage of the purlieu, uptight, surrounding well heeled gentry.

"Should we call the police". Someone asked.

See what I mean!

Well, that is still up for debate. Maybe someone actually did, for now the happy neighbors leave the congregatin' for Friday, Saturday and hopefully, not Sunday evenings.

Anyway...this state of affairs made me realize that I had not heard anyone have a really good laugh in a very long time. Too busy, too caught up with living...and just too much concerned with keeping up with the Joneses. Have we been letting appearances, a stressful lifestyle and general ennui, stifle our true desire for mirth and letting our emotions run free.

I went and stood in front of the bathroom mirror and tried to laugh in a freeing kind of way...I basically looked like a constipated idiot or someone trying hard not to puke or fart - sorry...pass wind.

So, I decided to be neighborly and get all up in the faces of the next congregating of the new happy neighbors...I went out and introduced myself. At first they were skeptical...then went all kind of silent. I said welcome to the neighborhood and went back inside. I kind of waved hi during the following week. They waved back - thankfully.

The next Friday evening, they invited me out...yeah! We had a welcome chat. Then...

If you can believe it - Why they were laughing - in particular, in the first place, on this random Friday evening...

Well, just for the fun of it, they said...Someone, they explained, suggested on a dare, that each one close his/her eyes and stop the world from moving...

What a silly thing to do. Oh hallelujah...

Really...just like that, just to do something so silly and mundane - just to enjoy being alive and your soul unmortgaged...unburdened. Just for a good laugh.

I was game...Try it, try it...they chanted...then went seriously silent.

I closed my eyes - concentrated real hard, looked a bit like constipation again to the onlooker I imagined, laughing out loud and sputtering.

Ok...here goes -

I freed my thoughts - let my mind go blank for a few moments - and suddenly...NOTHING!

- For uncannily - unbelievably...everything went blank.

THE WORLD HAD STOPPED...STOOD STILL. FROZEN.

I opened one eye.

The pigeons had gone rigid mid-wing, like origami suspended in air.

The wind held its breath in the trees.

A Hummer-type, pretentious looking vehicle hung at the edge of a pothole, its driver blinking in slow motion, caught between a curse and abstinence.

The clouds were paused like thoughts half-formed. People stuck in dance poses.

A child’s balloon hovered, taut with anticipation, as if waiting for permission to drift. The child caught mid jump, face a grinning still life portrait.

For one unfathomable moment...there was complete silence.

I opened the other eye - happiness bubbling from deep within my chest.

Peace like a river...flowing...effusive and effervescent...

That is when I begun to laugh. From the sheer joy...the sheer ridiculousness of it all...Miraculous

Freedom...

I felt so loose. So unchained.

What had started out as my just needing to have a really good laugh

On a crappy, same old, same old type of evening

Became a battle hymn sung

When I couldn't remember when I actually laughed like a loose cannon set free

Completely unable to stop itself from exploding

Obliterating everything within a thousand mile radius

A good wanton belly-shaking laugh - a full-bodied rebellion against restraint

A seismic joy-quake that starts somewhere deep in the gut and ripples outward like a magic spell breaking loose.

The kind of laugh that folds you in half, steals your breath, and makes your ribs feel like they’ve been tickled by the holy Jesus spirit

And you begin speaking in unknown tongues

rebuking the Devil

A guttural impolite rejoicing. Not poised. Just pure and primal.

The sound of rolling thunderclaps of snorts, wheezes, cackles, and gasping hiccups. The kind that might crescendo into a shriek or collapse into a silent, shoulder-shaking wheeze.

The body surrenders...Eyes squeezed shut, mouth wide open, limbs flailing - clutching at cars, other people...or furniture, for dear life. You slap the table and the table slaps back.

Kind of a heavenly holy ghost awakening...feeling.

Shouting - Hey...I stopped time. Is that not a miracle?

The aftermath of which brings tears streaming, mascara smudged and oh so messy, a stitch in your side, and the lingering echo of absurdity that keeps bubbling up hours later.

It’s the laugh that makes strangers join in without knowing why. The laugh that turns a mundane moment into myth. The laugh that says:

"I surrender to joy, to foolish whims, to the glorious ridiculousness of being alive".

The wanton, belly-shaking laugh that cracked the silence like thunder during a boring cathedral sermon.

But then...

The world flinched.

A leaf fell.

Time blinked.

And just like that, the spell unraveled.

The pigeons resumed their flapping.

The wind exhaled.

The truck bounced forward with a jolt, and the driver let loose unbridled profanity, scowled and swore at the sky.

But in that precious moment...something wonderful shifted.

The world remembered me. I felt ME.

Not as a god, not as a ghost...

But as one who dared to press pause....

And had a good, messy and glorious laugh to boot.

To begin a beautiful new friendship.

With neighbors who remember how to laugh.

To be unencumbered.

Reminding the neighborhood that we are alive.

Happy again. Even if for a short while!