The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.  ~e.e. cummings

Last week the depths of my sadness was palpable. As I wrote my post, Tell Me,  honoring my father, the tears dropped on the keyboard. My fingers struggled to keep typing, knowing the words couldn’t hang in my head or in mid-air. They definitely needed a place to land. As I moved through the week, much to my surprise the assault of sadness lightened.

This past weekend laughter surrounded me. My daughter played at the pool, dipped her toes into the water, yelled that it was cold, and then a bright, bellied laugh came from her. It echoed in my ears. During the afternoon, her friends played water games, ate pizza, and reveled in the luster of spring. I recall smiling at my daughter, wanting her to bask in this laughter or at least hoped that years down the road she could recall what this childhood laughter felt like. It’s the laughter of not knowing what is to come, but indulging in it without any hesitation.

On at least three or four occasions this weekend, it seems as if my daughter’s laugh jumped from her to me. As my husband and I shopped for groceries this weekend, we bantered back and forth, joking and teasing, and yes, laughing. We got together with our friends and at least twice during the evening, I remember laughing so hard, that I had to take a breath. And this laughter felt palpable too. I heard the own raucousness of the sounds coming from my belly and I thought about this moment, hours later. It hit me. I was ambushed by laughter.

And I felt the need to acknowledge laughter’s presence.  I spend much of my time honoring my sadness, but I don’t think I treat laughter as its corresponding equivalent. It is so easy to dwell on what you’ve lost, but not appreciate that everyday, there is something or someone that will coax you to laugh. I’ve been chasing the present and trying to analyze the best way to live in the now. Yesterday, for the first time, I realized that immersing myself in laughter is the easiest way to live in the present.

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Do you think about laughter? Do you believe it is the easiest way to live in the present? Do you laugh everyday?