The Best Medicine

I hear it floating up and out into the late afternoon air, hanging in the shadows, surprising me. Foreign. Loud. Boisterous.

            Laughter? Could it be?

            And, I wonder, when was the last time I heard such free form joy spilling out into the neighborhood? We are living in such somber times. Not much to laugh about lately. Everything around us is serious, tragic even: the coronavirus pandemic, the shelter in place isolation, the violent (and peaceful) demonstrations for the brutal murder of George Floyd at the knee of a police officer.

            I walk through the neighborhood and see signs taped in windows, tacked to fences:

            End White Silence

            The Whole World is Watching

            Take a knee for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor….

            I see signs by children, “End police brutality” with crayoned sunflowers surrounding images of George Floyd.

            It’s not a mirthful time. So, when I hear this laughter, ringing out over the neighborhood, I can’t believe my ears at first. I’m disoriented and confused for a moment. Then, I smile. Someone’s having a good time!

            As I approach the driveway that the laughter is coming from I slow my pace. Three adults, a nondescript man, a woman in a strange beige turban getup, and a teenage girl, slim and gawky, are bent over, laughing uncontrollably. They see me and can’t stop laughing. I can’t help but ask them, “What’s so funny?” I want to laugh too. It’s been a long time.

            “Oh….” The woman tries to contain her giggles, “We’re just being mean!”

            Her two partners in crime bust up again, the teenage girl can barely contain herself and turns away from me, doubled over with spasms of giggles.

            I grin, “Being mean never sounded so fun!”

            The woman nods, tries to explain, “It’s about our roommate….” But then she’s convulsed with chuckles again, her two cohorts joining in loud guffaws.

            What mean thing could they have done to their roommate to illicit such mirth? I remember some roommate mean escapades of my own, with my housemate, Ryan Corfu. One of which stands out: He always left his dirty dishes in the sink. Not just one or two, but piles of pots, pans, glasses, plates, cups after creating elaborate meals for his girlfriend, Stiff Neck (a mean nickname). So, one night, after he’d made his mess and left the pile in the sink as usual, going out with Stiff Neck to the movies or a walk, I and one of my other roommates took all of the dirty dishes and carted them upstairs to his room. What did we do with these disgusting dishes? We put them under his pillow! We thought this was hilarious! It was even more hilarious when he came home and went to bed with Stiff Neck, and we knew they had certainly discovered the pile of dirty dishes when they went to bed. Did Ryan lay his head on the pillow? Hear the rattle and feel the lumpiness of wet, yucky hardness before he realized what was up?

            Yet, it worked. He never left a dirty dish in the sink again!

            Now, caught up in my neighbors’ mirth, I wonder what mean thing they did to their roommate. Was it as dastardly (and effective) as what we did to Ryan?

            I want to ask them, but they have forgotten about me at this point, overrun with another round of giggles that they couldn’t control.

            I walk on, waving goodbye, “Nice to hear some Mirth in the neighborhood!”

            The sound of their laughter dims. The birdsong taking its place. I smile to myself, enchanted by their joy, and think,  I’m gonna try to laugh more. I mean it. Cause as the saying goes, it is the best medicine. Will it cure all the pandemics of COVID 19, racism, and violence? No, but it may help just a little......  What if we all took a moment to be a little mean (just kidding) and laugh up into the sky.

      I turn my face up to scan the speckled canopy of avocado leaves and let out a huge laugh. A crow

 caws back and I grin. It did feel good. And I do it again.