Years ago, I remember hearing an interview with the comedian Steve Martin (who was, then, hitting the bright lights of fame from Saturday Night Live) and how he said that actually comedians are usually the most serious people he knew.   It was one of those Soooby Doo ruh roh moments for me because I knew I loved to laugh but I also knew that I could be equally as serious about life.

I’ve always been fascinated by what makes people laugh and what brings up that surging giggle wave inside of me.  We explored the thinking behind it in Philosophy class (absurdity of information, how info is received, etc.) but that still didn’t satisfy me.  Where I’ve ended up landing about laughing is that I have to just enjoy the results of whatever it is that makes us laugh because trying to dissect it out takes all the fun out of it.

For example, a good friend and I have often joked that because my humor can sometimes be so off the wall that if I ever took my act on the road, she would be my one psychic fan because she knows what I am conveying with very few moves and words.  I’m pretty sure my mom and I have that kind of connection too, in fact, I think I learned this particular brand of humor from her with its is very subtle movements and lots of history.  So, when said good friend and I were waiting for yoga class to begin and had gathered around us the accouterments of class such as the Tami mat, blanket and a chair, when I looked at the chair behind me and made a very simple gesture with my hands in a circle above my head, my friend understood that I meant to convey a scene of  Chinese acrobats  doing amazing gymnastics with chairs and each other.  Perhaps with some honing and practice, I could convey this kind of humor to more than one audience member.  I think that’s probably what the really good comedians do such as Ellen DeGeneres and Jim Gaffigan.

And then there’s just the physicality and emotionality of laughing itself.  Like at the end of every yoga class when our teacher would have us laying on the floor and ask us to just laugh as heartily as we could.  Some people would start out with that hesitant laughter, heh-heh-heh, and then sometimes there’d be someone who’d go way over the top almost to the edge of making you want to rise out of your yoga bliss and go bop them on the head!  Whenever the aforementioned friend and I would start laughing together we would end up cracking each other up and really laughing getting the whole class into an uproar.  Such fun.  It’s all the gasoline my inner-kid needs to find ways to keep the laughter going.  No wonder I used to get U’s on my conduct reports in Sixth Grade.  Who doesn’t want to laugh? Evidently my teacher that’s who!

There are all kinds of ways we can find humor out there in life.  In fact, I have seen the very quirky off the wall humor that I love caught in photos. Like the one my friend Kat found right after the very slight Earthquake that Washington D.C. experienced last year of  garden table on a rolling lawn with one chair askew. 

So if you’re ever feeling just a little blue or perhaps taking life just a little bit too seriously…find something to laugh about…your soul will be glad you did!

Photo that my friend P posted this week on FaceBook with a very sparse explanation saying, “this is how I feel today”….