REJOICE!
My soul woke singing, who knows why.
REJOICE!
As in a chorus by Handel. (Nobody does jubilation better than he.) “Rejoice, o Judah, in songs divine!” “Hallelujah, hallelujah!” Brimming with zest for today. What’s so special about today? That it’s today! The sun is shining, Henry is prancing for his run, Jane’s spoon is tinkling like an angelus on her cereal bowl. “Hallelujah!”
Half-scary this outburst, knowing it cannot last. Curious why it gushes, like an artesian spring, and then subsides. Reason searches recent history for reasonable clues. There must be a reason. But we know better. This is a gift, like love or faith, no questions asked, no holds barred.
Maybe if I tell you about it, I’ll inch closer to understanding. Understanding is why I write, to explore not explain. Each outing – missive, journal, poem – commences in wonder: Why on earth! Rested I wrestle the wonder of the world, the sweatier the grapple the gladder. There’s no answer, of course – any seeming answer is another question – but there is nearer to understanding, deepening of awareness, which feels like progress.
Exuberance, grandkids remind me, is commoner in kids. And in dogs, grrrs Henry. I wonder, do we graduate from exuberance or is it bred out of us? The more courtly the courtesy, the less welcome hilarity. “I recommend to you to take care never to laugh,” wrote prim Lord Chesterfield to his son; “it is a silly habit, which lessens the dignity of the character… I am sure that, since I have had the full use of my reason, nobody has ever heard me laugh.” No wonder Dr. Johnson loathed the guy – what a stick!
I love to laugh – and the sound of laughter. Who doesn’t? But then I remember, sadly, my mother didn’t. She smiled politely but never laughed. Her children’s laughter riled her, as if we were ganging up (which naturally made us laugh all the more). My father’s laugh was explosive and high-pitched but somehow not hearty – forced. Were they sad inside or intimidated by propriety? The memory of their mordancy ushers out my joy.
Laughter is a gift – and a talent. Serious art struggles to laugh. Shakespeare managed it, especially when he was younger – and Dickens – though both saddened as they aged. Fielding and Trollope were always funny. I shy from authors labeled “comic” – it feels they’re straining for laughs. I’ve no knack for being funny with words; when I try, I cringe. The best I can do is wry (as in the Scottish song).
Is there any life experience more memorable than a hearty laugh? I remember little from my decades, but of certain outbursts of hilarity, helpless gasping guffawing, I can retrieve every particular. A car ride with my sister driving where we got the giggles (The car was a convertible; its seats red leather; it was hot.) The funeral of a relation’s relation – a cranky old guy – where we almost “bust a gut”. I finger the specifics lovingly, like talismans.
Cicero, who was always decreeing, decreed the gods gave humans laughter to distinguish us from other creatures. He never met Henry. Henry may not guffaw, but he yips and wags and licks and paws and his big brown eyes brighten as he observes his effect. Is he begging? One might say. But this is more than begging, it’s rejoicing – and he knows he’s being funny.
Such eruptions of exuberance remind me life is worth living, which I sometimes forget. “With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die,” sighed Lincoln.