Sketching a Twisty Path on the Globe

Just got back from exercise class.  My lungs loosened up and made me cough a bit.  My stomach muscles feel a little tight, and come to think of it my jaw does too.  It must have been the part when we pretended to be balloons deflating and phlllbbbbbbed our way to the floor.  Or was it the bit when we lay on our backs and pretended to be karate caterpillars all in a line?  Maybe, that was a strenuous one.  Even for a group of adults. 

Several weeks ago I was walking home alone after having dinner with friends, baklava in hand, when samba drums drew me toward a building I’d never inspected before.  It was lit up and people mingled inside among colorful paintings.  Others flooded in the front doors implying the start of a new show soon.  “What’s the show?” I asked a man waiting outside.  “Don’t know.  My daughter bought the tickets. I think it has ukuleles.”  Enough to lure me through the doorway.  “What’s the show?” I ask the woman behind me in line.  “Well, I think it’s a comedy group from Europe.”  OK definitely can’t leave the line now.  By the time I reach the ticket counter it has officially become two folk bands.  True to my informers though, the first did have several ukuleles and had us all chuckling with their stories from a folk festival in Ukistan.  During the break the lady next to me (who snorts loudly when she laughs) says, “You have a great laugh!  You should come to Laughing Yoga!” 

It’s been three weeks of anticipation and in the meantime I collected a couple curious friends.  We arrived in the parking lot and a poster informed us we were actually 30 minutes late.  Determined to laugh (even if succinctly), we followed the multiple signs with arrows:  “Laughter Club this way” and ended out at a glass door through which we could see a group of serious-looking people in a circle.  Despite our tardiness, they invited us in and then laughed at us when we told them our names. 

The “exercises” we did were something like preschool.  Or slumber parties.  Or the goofy kid in class who always got in trouble for it. Except we were ALL the goofy kids:  pretending to shove cream into our mouths, wagging our behinds to “Tsitsy Tsa,” making farting noises.  No.  Really.  And, it worked, I laughed until my face was red and I had to take off my scarf for air.  Maybe it partly worked because your mind really can’t believe that they are doing this, wait, that you are doing this.  It’s an odd collection of people that may never stand in the same room together otherwise.  Some chanting thanks for their colorful lips, others for their firm butt, elbows, knees, blood.  But at the end, we all held hands for our final affirmations: “We are the happiest people in the world.  We are the healthiest people in the world.” 

I doubt I’ll convince anyone else to return with me.  I’m not totally sure I’ll convince myself.  BUT, I am completely sold on the experience of allowing yourself to be blown off track. To let a drumbeat or an old lady give you a suggestion.  If you’re lucky, you just might find ukuleles and belly laughter there.   

It was about 80 degrees in Hamilton and my coworkers were wearing their little strappy tops and sassy shoes for the Christmas party.  I ran to snap quick photos of the OT Department’s “Kiwi Christmas” decorations that included Santa on a boogie board and a beach camp set up with vegemite sandwiches and perusing pukeko birds.  Then, I boarded a plane at 8:15pm; at 8:45pm I arrived in St. Louis, incredibly groggy after a “30 minute” flight that lasted longer than 2008. 

Around New Zealand, Santa surfed on lightpoles and a storefront window even boasted him being pulled in a tractor by a team of 8 magical flying sheep.  Co-workers talked about their plans:  Dressed in swim togs, sunnies and jandals, toting the chilly bin to the beach for a barbie.  I really tried to believe that New Zealand could host Christmas just as well as St. Louis.  I even joined our department’s “Christmas Decoration Committee” just to get in the spirit.  As it turned out, it was the most stressful committee I’ve been a part of and in exasperation I spent 3 days making giant-gingerbread-with-special-needs (cast, wheelchair, and a bite out of the ass).  Really though I think my holiday memories were more convincing than calendars and I decided:  Christmas just can’t exist if you’re wearing flip flops. 

That’s OK, because me and my suntan arrived in St. Louis last week in a shuddering 17 degrees.  We pulled up to our house decorated with white lights and little wooden candle scenes in the windows and I knew that “Christmas has now begun.”  And it had and it has and it is.  Cookies and drawing cartoons, soccer and scavenger hunts, wine and more wine, beading and big breakfasts– this is truly the life, and truly Christmas as I dream about it. 

Hope all of you are also rolling in those simple things that make the holidays stand apart from the rest of the year.  Let stress fall like sugar down the gullet, and people-time replace paperwork-time.  Cheers to you all!  

P.S.  Since I can’t seem to figure out how to get rid of the vast white above this entry, let’s just call it “special effects”–a blizzard to set the scene.  ; )