Tag: laughter

But I Love Them Wholeheartedly

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“Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man.” – Rabindranath Tagore

Kids! They bicker with each other
and leave their shoes around.
Tears flow too easily
usually because they’re low on fuel.

It takes so much work
To make a family work
Keeping their hearts and minds engaged
And bodies well.

But I love them wholeheartedly
And not just when they are sleeping
Curled up with an arm akimbo
And sideways on the bed.

Because there’s a fierceness
Of love and loyalty
When we know we belong together
And commit to making repair

The laughter and dance parties
Curiosity and attentiveness
Is so damn inspiring
That one cannot help but grow

I’m so profoundly proud
Of the effort my kids put in to every day
Really of all of us
Forging a path through all the busy-ness
To the heart of the way

Family has a myriad of definitions
Depending on our point of view
But I’ll keep mine – work and everything
Because there is so much love to do!

A Little Puff of Laughter

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“The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.” – Mark Twain

The other day I was on a Teams video meeting with a colleague and he burst into laughter. “I cannot take you seriously with that pen,” he howled!

I was taking notes with a ball point pen with a puff ball top with absolutely no awareness that I’d picked it up. I’d plucked it out of the puppy’s mouth just minutes before when I found that he’d stolen it. Well, I removed it only after I took a picture, of course!

When I told my colleague this, we both started laughing so hard that we were crying. And I realized that I missed this facet of face-to-face meetings. Not the crying – but the laughing.

It seems that when I spend my times zooming (pun intended) from one virtual meeting to the next, one of the things that is lost is the chit chat and laughter of in-person meetings. Perhaps I’m just racing to get it done and get off the computer, but I also think we miss the physical cues of humor.

Like the time I was sitting with a colleague in a client’s conference room and was kicking my foot. I inadvertently hit the up/down lever on my colleagues chair and it lowered by a foot. He turned and said, “You trying to take me down a notch?”

Laughter, warmth, listening require extra care when we’re virtual. I need that reminder so I’m keeping my fuzzy pen by my computer to wave every once in a while and laugh!

Sunday Funnies: Feb 12

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A re-run of my dad’s humor cards. They make me chuckle all over again – so I hope you enjoy them whether it’s the first time or second (first posted on 1/2/22).

The backstory: My dad was a Presbyterian pastor for 40 years. He kept a well curated stack of humor cards – little stories he heard, found or saw and then typed onto 5×7 cards. Then he wrote in the margins when he used that particular item. His humor was often an easy way to settle in to something deeper – by laughing and thinking about the buried truth in these little nuggets, it paved the way to an open heart.

School Excuses

Favorite excuses written by parents to principals.

  • Please excuse Lisa from school yesterday. She was sick so I had her shot.
  • I hope you will excuse John for being absent Jan 28, 29, 30, 31, 32 and also 33.
  • Please excuse Tommy for being absent yesterday. He had diarrhea and his boots leak.
  • Dear Mr. Thomas, Jennifer missed school yesterday for a good reason. We forgot to get the Sunday paper off the porch, and when we found it Monday, we thought it was Sunday.

I believe these were first published in an Ann Landers column.

The Body of Humor

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“The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.” – Mark Twain

The other day in the privacy of my back yard, my 6-year-old daughter and her friends were using water balloons to pretend to pee. I started to say something about that being crude humor but then thought of back when I was climbing mountains. I had a She Wee which was a urinary redirector so that girls can stand and pee.

On one climb of Mt. Rainier, I was roped to three of my guy friends and had to pee at 13,500 feet. I walked as far away as I could while roped up, turned my back and used the She Wee. When I turned back to the group, one of my friends was looking at me and said, “Sorry, I couldn’t look away, that was fascinating!” I laughed because it WAS funny and not at all creepy.

What kids know that grown-ups seem to have forgotten is that bodies are funny, amazing and full of wonder. Both of my kids started laughing at “a-choo” by the time they were 6 months old and now most any sneeze, burp or fart makes them break into laughter. Pop a knuckle or get a scratch and they are fascinated. And though they cry when they skin their knees, both are completely entranced by the sight of blood.

The body is great at getting out what it no longer needs. We grow up and try to keep it in – emotions, bad meals, sickness and somehow in the process take it all too seriously. At my age, any twinge of adrenaline and I break out in a full sweat. And when I do yoga in the mornings, I close the doors to the family room just so my groans won’t wake the kids. Instead of trying to pretend it isn’t happening, perhaps I should laugh about it.

Back to funny stories from the mountains. There was the guy I wrote about who came back from the outhouse at 12,500 feet in the Caucasus Mountains saying, “I just spent five minutes dancing with my toilet paper.” And there was another incident on the way to Everest Base Camp in Nepal. We had set up our tents outside Namche Bazar at about 13,000 feet and our guides had created a toilet tent for us – a hole in the ground with a toilet seat sitting atop small luggage rack covered by a tall, skinny tent shaped like a telephone booth. One afternoon the wind came up and knocked over the toilet tent with someone inside. Once we helped him out of all that fabric and determined he wasn’t hurt, it was hilarious.

Perhaps it is because we are vulnerable while we are relieving ourselves that makes us forget that it’s funny. And even this cycle of life, as inglorious as it is, teaches us something. So we might as well eat, drink, and pee merry!

Is your body doing anything funny these days?

(featured photo is Miss O at 6 months laughing at a-choo!)

When We Look Closely

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“Who sees all beings in his own Self and his Self in all beings, loses all fear.” – The Isa Upanishad

The other day my son was nose to nose with our cat then turned to me and said, “I see me in kitty’s eyes.“

It reminded me of a story from the Talmud that I read in Mark Nepo’s Book of Awakening:

A Rabbi asks his student, “How do you know the first moment of dawn has arrived? After a great silence, one pipes up, “When you can tell the difference between a sheep and a dog.” The Rabbi shakes his head no. Another offers, “When you can tell the difference between a fig tree and an olive tree.” Again the Rabbi shakes his head no. There are no other answers. The Rabbi circles their silence and walks between them, “You know the first moment of dawn has arrived when you look into the eyes of another human being and see yourself.”

The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo

I was talking with a friend the other day about Monsters, Inc. which is my son’s favorite movie these days. She asked the question, “Wouldn’t it be great if we as humans figured out how to harness laughter & love instead of screams & fear?”  

To me, it feels with almost 8 billion people on the planet like an almost overwhelming task for the dawn to break so that we can all see we are all different yet we share the same aches and pains of life. But then I breathe and remember, it happens one person at a time. It happens when I remember to be open and take the time to look into someone else’s eyes and gather the power of laughter and love.

And maybe when we exercise gentleness and closeness, it happens too between species like with my son and the cat. That is hopeful too.

Humor: Jan 2nd

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Since we are (hopefully) going back to school this week, I thought I’d post these favorite excuses written by parents to principals. I believe these were first published in an Ann Landers column.

  • Please excuse Lisa from school yesterday. She was sick so I had her shot.
  • I hope you will excuse John for being absent Jan 28, 29, 30, 31, 32 and also 33.
  • Please excuse Tommy for being absent yesterday. He had diarrhea and his boots leak.
  • Dear Mr. Thomas, Jennifer missed school yesterday for a good reason. We forgot to get the Sunday paper off the porch, and when we found it Monday, we thought it was Sunday.

Hoping no one mistakes Monday for Sunday this week. 🙂

Photo of the Week: Dec 18th

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After a week of the entire family being sick, I was surprised to flip through my phone and see that I had several photos to choose from – mountains, snow, Christmas decorations, shopping.

I choose this one because it spoke to me of the drop-by-drop flow of happiness. I captured this moment in a store where my toddler was hiding and laughing while wearing pants that say “peek-a-boo” on the waist band.

Sometimes, even if or especially if, I am dragging through the week muzzy-headed and achy because of a cold, it’s great to remember the joy of the moments when it all came together perfectly and we laughed!

What Made Me Laugh This Week: Nov 21

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I came across my dad’s “humor” notecards this week. Humor was often my dad’s way into a sermon or talk, creating a shared laugh so that the audience could exhale into the moment. Holding these notecards that I’ve had tucked away these many years since we cleaned off his desk, I felt the same release of distance as I laughed at these items that reflect his gentle sense of humor.

Here are two items from his stack:

A 12-year-old was coming out of church with his father and saw a large board with rows of little name plates. He asked his dad what it meant and his father replied, “Those are the names of people from our church who died in the service.” The boy paused then asked, “Which one – the 9:30 or the 11?”

Things I Learned as a Child

  1. No matter how hard you try, you can’t baptize cats.
  2. When your mom is mad at your dad, don’t let your mom brush your hair.
  3. If your sister hits you, don’t hit her back. They always catch the second person.
  4. Never asks a three-year-old to hold a tomato.
  5. Whether she’s real or not, you should believe in the tooth fairy if you like money.
  6. You can’t trust dogs to watch your food.
  7. Reading what people write on desks can teach you a lot.
  8. Don’t sneeze when someone is cutting your hair.
  9. Puppies still have bad breath even after eating a tic tac.
  10. Never hold a dustbuster and a cat at the same time.

Surprised by Joy

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“To get the full value of joy, you must have someone to divide it with.” – Mark Twain

I was reading a meditation this morning from Listening to Your Life by Frederich Buechner and he was making a point of differentiating joy from happiness. Happiness, he said, is man-made and one of the highest achievements of which we are capable (a happy home, a happy marriage, etc.). And he goes on to speak of joy:

But we never take credit for our moments of joy because we know that they are not man-made and that we are never really responsible for them. They come when they come. They are always sudden and quick and unrepeatable. The unspeakable joy sometimes of just being alive. The miracle sometimes of being just who we are with the blue sky and the green grass, the faces of our friends and the waves of the ocean, being just what they are. The joy of release, of being suddenly well when before we were sick, of being forgiven when before we were ashamed and afraid, of finding ourselves loved when we were lost and alone. The joy of love, which is the joy of the flesh as well of the spirit. But each of us can supply his own moments, so just two more things. One is that joy is always all-encompassing, there is nothing of us left over to hate with or to be afraid with, to feel guilty with or to be selfish about. Joy is where the whole being is pointed in one direction, and it is something that by its nature a man never hoards but always wants to share. The second thing is that joy is a mystery because it can happen anywhere, anytime, even under the most unpromising circumstances, even in the midst of suffering, with tears in its eyes.

Listening to Your Life by Frederich Buechner

Reading this made me think of my most recent moment of joy. It was last night. My kids and I had gone for an after dinner walk to see some cool mushrooms that my daughter had found. But in the 2 hours since she’d discovered them and I took a photo, they’d been removed. Then it started raining and my son fell down and scraped up his palms. The whole escapade was a little bit of a disaster.

So we got cleaned up, ready for bed and snuggled on my bed reading books. As I got off the bed and as I turned to pick up my son, I bent over him pretending (but not having to pretend much) that I was too tired to carry him to his bed. We all dissolved into laughter, me bent over like that, my son folded underneath me, my daughter on the bed beside him.

And we laughed all the way into his bedroom where we all sang, even my toddler, Brahms Lullaby as he settled into his crib.

What Made Me Laugh This Week

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My friend Eric was picking up Thai food for dinner the other night. The cashier was moving fast and talking fast. As she was printing out the credit card signature slip, she said to the customer in front of him, “Do you want a copy?”

The customer looked aghast and paused before saying, “I don’t think that’ll work. We have cats.”

Then they all laughed when they realized the woman thought the cashier was offering her a puppy.