When I was in Canada last week I had time to visit old haunts, avenues I had not been down in many years, basically relying upon a child's memory to gauge my surroundings. I drove as if in a dream, getting lost, driving on, finding places vaguely familiar yet everything a bit changed. Not grand changes, mind you, just not quite the way I remembered them.
Only the fields, stretched out in every direction and fading to a vast, endless sky, felt the same going back through my memory and perhaps even four generations of time to my great, great grandmother, who came here long ago from Copenhagen, Denmark.
One morning I found myself, of all places, at a Starbucks in the nearby city of Lethbridge. It wasn't especially cold enough to warrant hot chocolate but I was feeling light headed so I went inside and got one anyway. When the barista handed me my cup, some of the contents sloshed down the side, so I went in search of a napkin to clean it off.
With that accomplished, I absently eyed the waste bin cut into the surface of the counter and made a move to toss my wadded napkin therein. Instead, I watched in horror as it completely defied my flight plan and beaned the elderly gentleman who was standing next to me, stirring his coffee.
"It's funny," he said mildly, before I could summon a response, "Because you're quite tall. I would have guessed you'd be rather good at basketball."
I looked at him, then began to laugh. I laughed and apologized, apologized and laughed. We exchanged pleasantries and went our various ways, me with a ridiculous grin plastered to my face.
Oh, it felt so good to laugh like that, dear reader. It felt like coming out of a dungeon, like years of trouble had been whisked away.
What is it about laughter? What is its power to lighten a dark moment when it hasn't really changed anything at all?
Does it change something? Does it restore, in some small degree, a sorrow, an old wound, things which have been taken away?
I don't mean the humor one uses as a shield, as a way to avoid reality, but rather the brief, glorious liberation laughter affords the person who is well enough aware and dealing with difficult circumstances.
And what is it about people who take the time to say something funny when they could just as easily stick to nods and muttered responses, to sparing tones, to the standard means of least communication?
What is that extra spark? What is that degree of interest? What is that particular depth of the human soul?
It warms me like nothing else, it speaks volumes to my heart, it soothes and reminds me things will get better and life is still beautiful, even in that very moment.
To the people who make such efforts, who interpret getting hit by a stranger's garbage as the chance to make a joke: how lovely you make this world.
How happy, meaningful, and good.