The Simples

      My friends and I call it the simples. You know, those moments of laughter that make you grab your stomach and breath and then the tears run down your face. How do you explain the simples? The source of the hilarity is often tied to the moment and loses so much in translation. One simple leads to another and pretty soon EVERYTHING is funny. Hang it up, only time will heal and time will also, with very little provocation, remind the parties of simples of the past. A glance, a phrase and no matter how much time has passed, it is as if you are there at that same moment in the past and the peels and roars of laughter begin all over again. It’s that simple.
      I have run marathons and after crossing the finish line grabbed my knees and literally sucked wind trying to breathe. I’ve done strenuous aerobics, lost my breath to terror, and have had numerous colonoscopies but never do I feel so cleansed as when I laugh, as when the simples expel every impurity in my body and mind. How do you explain such laughter? How is it possible to capture the spontaneity and uncontrolled physical reaction of laughter in words? And why would we not choose to stay in these moments rather than the moods, situations and reactions that torment our bodies with stress, dismantle our self esteem and leave us less than we are? Does God laugh? I have to believe there is heavenly laughter. Don’t you know the heavens have to have angelic simples as they watch us try to figure it all out like a dog chasing its tail. If they say you actually stop breathing when you sneeze, a tiny little death, what then is laughter? Maybe it is death to all the seriousness and business of life and we have to suck and gasp for air. Hmmmm maybe it is God’s way of reminding us of the first breath we gasped in – His. Ah, maybe that’s where we learned to laugh, to be alive, to know it is good, it’s that simple.