Laughter, Love, and the Deep Coloured Vegetables

From the glow of summer sun, life draws us into the jewel tones of autumn. Squashes of forest green and amber, striated brussel sprouts, white and purple rutabagas -or is that turnips?- roasted or baked or steamed offer comfort and sustenance.

The order my little corner of the world offers, where I can stream “Hot in Cleveland” and laugh just as loudly at Betty White’s impression of Marlon Brando as I did when she told St Olaf stories that went on forever about cows and cheese queens and sex without the lights on in “The Golden Girls”, strengthens my resolve.

Real life has deep colours, rich shades of light that have been sucked in and not released and give life in abiding ways of vibrancy and nutrition.  No iceberg lettuce life will rev the metabolism of meaning and purpose like charred and buttered fleshy butternut and beetroot portions of authentic, daily content.

How much are you ignoring? What parts of your life have you simply chosen to skip over?
Love will change your life. Who you love, how you love, where you love, why you love, and what you love is that which defines you. No, not quite. Who loves you, how they love you, why they love you, what they love about you, THAT, that is what defines you, shapes you.

Neediness saps and destroys. Who you need, how you need, where you need, why you need, and what you need, are all glaring revelations of the hole in your soul. No, not quite. Who needs you, how they need you, why they need you, what they need you for, THAT, that is what sucks the life out of you and makes you think dependency is Love.

This afternoon I explained to someone the way our culture in America gets things wrong. Anxiety and fear drive this nation. Pain is portrayed as an entity that must be ignored, dulled, or neutralized.

Healthy living is actually the other way around. Anxiety and fear ought to be comforted and assuaged and pain is better felt and experienced and healed. Would those be reversed, there would be a revolution in this country that brought more quality of life than could be imagined.

Smiling means you’re not dead yet. When it leads to laughter it is revival.

Laughter.

A guy goes to his doctor for an exam. Afterward the doctor tells him, “you have to stop smoking, lower your cholesterol and exercise more.” The guy hurriedly gets off the table and the doctor asks, “Where are you going?” He responds, “Gonna go find a pipe smoking fat doctor that watches a lot of TV”
Ever watched a kid in a high chair fall asleep and do a face plant in his food? Why is that funny? Because we imagine ourselves doing it and in that moment release our pride.

Never once do I get in an elevator that I don’t remember the Candid Camera episode where the ringer gets in the elevator and faces backwards and everyone after that enters and faces backwards.

There’s a wonderful book about Jewish humour. It makes the point that only people who have experienced pain and suffering and are honest about it can laugh or make jokes. How much you laugh depends on your relationship with your pain.

Maybe you have chosen a life that is pastel. Pastels are the colours of not quite mature, just born, not fully grown.
Lavender begat purple. Pink begat magenta.

Iridescence and distinction are admirable qualities in a world that measures success by profit margins and progress by hits. Both of those indicators are lifeless, colourless. Sometimes a hit on a websit isn’t even a real person. Often times a profit margin happens because of low level worker is short changed.

Yet the courage it takes to live a jewel toned life is sometimes too much for many as the cost of engaging with the substance of history appears too dear. I , who have and continue to accept the necessity of doing so, connecting with my story, will tell you the cost is less than the price of deceit.

We can learn to live with each other as individuals experience the truth of their stories. You can get outside of yourself. You can listen to someone else.

In the sixties the invitation to young people, the admonition was to avoid the plastic life. Remember that scene in “The Graduate” where the older man is trying to interest Dustin Hoffman in plastics?

Now, the encouragement is to ‘virtual’. Not just the wrong substance, but that which is not real.

You have the time, you have the ability, it will be worth it. Big belly laughs and jewel tones are what is best to desire, to surrender to.

Busy schedules and lack of money and bodies that betray us will try to convince otherwise.

Laugh and go deep. It will not disappoint.

Love,
Deborah