Lyrics: Smile without a reason why/ Love, as if you were a child/ Smile, no matter what they tell you/ Don’t listen to a word they say/ ’cause life is beautiful that way.
Sometimes it feels like I’m living in a time warp; something like the movie, Groundhog Day, with Christmas repeating itself day after day only it’s year after year. It’s the years that are going faster. Emotions are built into the holidays with curves and surprises and we might stumble over the Ho Ho Ho’s with painfully beautiful memories of relationship losses, be they parents, spouses, friends, children, pets. This season I attended two memorial services, one for my dear friend of sixty-six years. Thus, Christmas for elders is often a time of reflection and we tire easily of the hustle and bustle.
This election year was a divisive one for our country and for the world. So much hate. It’s like seeing the world through myopic drug store readers vs. rose-colored glasses; all fuzzy and out-of-kilter. I’m ready to let go of 2016 and yet grateful for so much. There were many bonuses. What do I hope for in 2017? Laughter and lots of it. Just this morning, I saw a piece online from the Late Late Night Show with James Corden and had a long laugh-out-loud, good ol’ fashion belly laugh. What a great cathartic release.
Robert Fulghum writes about the healing power of laughter in his book, What on Earth Have I Done? He recounts his experience on the Greek Island of Crete unwittingly offending the locals with his American behaviors and then earning their favor with even more insulting humor; learning their word for laughter, Asbestos Gelos, or “Fireproof laughter.” Sounds like a good elixir for our salvation today; unquenchable and invincible laughter, “raw, reckless, and wicked.” Need I say, use discriminately.
We have a President-elect who is wont to suck the laughter out of a helium balloon. As a senior, I am particularly disturbed by his proposed appointment of Rep. Tom Price of Georgia as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Price is known to oppose Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, and women’s reproductive health. Could humor be the antidote to a poisonous next four years? The Donald doesn’t have a sense of humor so I therefore appoint Stephen Colbert, James Corden, the two Jimmies, Fallon and Kimmel, and Trevor Noah as my representatives to the Department of Wellness and Sane Mental Health. I encourage you to make a New Year’s Resolution (one that you will keep faithfully) to laugh out loud every day in 2017, even if you have to fake it. You can fool your body into catharsis. That’s true.
Lyrics: Keep the laughter in your eyes/ Soon your long awaited prize/ We’ll forget about our sorrow/ And think about a brighter day/ ‘Cause life is beautiful that way. (Songwriters: Gil Dor, Acnhinoam Nime and Nicola Piovani. Performed by Italy’s national treasure, il Volo. Check them out on Youtube.)
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Yes, the tea leaves are telling us we may have a bumpy four years ahead, but as you so aptly noted, we must not lose our sense of humor. Thankfully we have several comedians who can lighten it up. And we have people we can lean on — and try to make some sense out of the craziness of politics / Government / Health programs, life in the US, etc.