In her book, Dusk, Night, Dawn: On Revival and Courage, Anne Lamott has a wonderful quote about laughter: “Laughter is carbonated holiness,” and on Instagram, she added it is also oxygenation and salvation. What I like about her description is how laughter and her best friends have saved her over the past 60ish years, because there is indeed in laughter an act of saving, whether it is a saving grace, a saving from a moment of self pity, or a saving from a bad day. I have found over my own many years that a moment of laughter can shift my mood and help shift a moment. It can also help me rediscover my way when I have lost it. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why I appreciate the laughter I share with my girls and love the way they make me laugh.
Today, as we took a family drive around the Biltmore Estate property, we shared some of those kinds of moments. While they each tend to disappear into their music playing through their headphones, the 14 year old doesn’t typically play her music loud enough to drown us out and therefore she tends to chime in with some funny quips from time to time. But today it wasn’t only her sharp wit that sparked my joy, it was also the look on her face, the one that demonstrated how pleased she was with herself for being that funny; that funny being the kind when you know you’ve struck gold because the joke thread gets built on and doesn’t die off immediately. Laughter bridges gaps words cannot because it is instantaneous and without pretense.
There are some days when laughter truly is more like oxygen and carbonated holiness like Lamott says, and for me, today was one of those days. That’s why I stamped that moment with my 14 year old on my heart’s memory, that moment when I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw that self-adoration on her face. But that wasn’t the only moment I’ve stored in my heart today. There have been passing moments of puns and cat silliness and read aloud laughs, and I have embraced quite fiercely those snippets of laughter. I appreciate those moments with each of my teenagers today because I can tell I am not as fully present today as I want to be; my feet have wandered from the path. It’s been a long week and I am weary and I feel a bit disconnected, from myself as well as from my family.
And that is why today I hold fast to Lamott’s idea of carbonated holiness. I crave the connection laughter provides because it bridges any gap in an instant. So often, in moments of tension with my girls, when I know they are experiencing dysregulation and need to rediscover their sense of emotional balance, I have often relied on laughter, knowing if I can get them to laugh at something witty or something simple, I can help them re-regulate. I know this from my own experience with life’s challenging moments and my own mental health struggles—a burst of laughter helps reset heart and mind. When I am adrift, laughter is an anchor that tethers me to my people. It helps shift my perspective and my expectations and it reveals the sacredness living life together offers me. It reveals the ways we need each other, and the ways we depend on one another.
I suppose that’s why the Lamott quote resonates so deeply with me. When I am too hard on myself and feeling out of sorts, like I have stepped off my path, the presence of my people makes all the difference. A smile, a moment of laughter, breathes life back into my weary soul. The spark of laughter is a sacred beacon that leads me back to myself and back on my path. Laughter reduces the distance we sometimes experience with each other. It bubbles up and bursts forth, an expression of life and breath and salvation. And I am daily grateful for the way these two remarkably witty young women provide me the life-lightening elixir of laughter.