**originally written after returning from Christmas break with my family, last year**
hearing your grandmother laugh ’til she squeaks is sort of like when a baby gets tickled and laughs out loud for the first time…you just get all warm and it’s the sweetest, cutest, most delightful sound you’ve ever heard…and it makes you laugh…and love even more.
it’s like there’s a gas leak. that’s what i say to myself when i feel it starting…the giggles. that’s the only logical explanation when we begin…and can’t stop sometimes when we all get together.
it starts with just a few small chuckles at the silliest thing…then grows as we look around at each other with big goofy grins while we shake our heads. i think at some point, it morphs…from a few of us laughing at something ridiculous…to a family reveling in the fact that we’re all content to sit with each other and tell stories of no importance and lean on the person who’s next to us…for support…and laugh ’til we’re tired & the tears come. we save up for these conversations; it can be 3 of us or 9; and we can be in the house, car, or at the mall in a crowd that disappears completely when we start up for whatever reason…and it’s always appropriate…to us…
everybody who’s experienced some type of joyous…thing–large or small, would probably like to capture the feeling, or the smell, or the sound of that experience…to keep for themselves, or share with others, whatever the case may be…i would too. i wouldn’t want to keep it though–i’d give a little to everybody if they asked…and i’d want to watch them hear…see their reaction to the cackles, chortles, chuckles, wheezes and such, following any silly thing we hear, say, and then rehash.
it really is just laughter…merriment…mirth…glee…a simple thing, not a requirement to the livelihood of some…but effortless and true…without malice or judgment…it’s a necessity for me.
the fact that the grands laugh just as hard the rest of us makes it sweeter…they’ve probably experienced things throughout their lifetimes that nobody should have, but they made us anyway & protected us for just these moments…
i recharge my battery when i’m home with them & bring it all back to my life away from them…bottled up…sharing it all with everyone who amuses me…or needs amusing…and at some point, my mouth opens and they hear my family without knowing…and they laugh like us too.
Jessamyn West wrote, “Some folks are always thirsting for water from other people’s wells.” Although a statement on envy…why not a statement about drawing from the bounty of energy from others, in order to kindle your own. Still, if we were all as magical a the few, there would no longer be magic or wonderment at it’s powers! Keep it up, Nic…you’re amazing…truly gifted…and I’m honored to call you friend.