Laughter and Grief, Revolutionaries
I grew up in Rochester, New York, which meant cold winters and lots of snow. For a few years, starting when my brother and I were about 8 and 12 years old respectively, we celebrated an annual winter rite that involved watching Mr. Leonard, who lived across the street from us, get a good running start in his car then take a hard left and gun the engine to race to the top of his steep uphill driveway, plowed as always before any other on the street, but that leaving a skim of ice in its place. Things would look promising until just past the halfway point, when his wheels would start to spin in place then inch backward, forcing Mr. Leonard to back down the driveway while my brother and I fell flat on our backs on the snow, laughing from a place that started deep in the gut and roared out of us in chorus.
We didn’t like Mr. Leonard much. He always had a fit when a foul ball landed on his lawn in our summer baseball games on the street. Our dislike of the man is important, not for justifying our poorly developed sense of morality at the time but to make the point that comedy often works best when the butt of the joke is high and mighty, self-righteous, or powerful. Mr. Leonard was our excuse for this kind of person. If we had liked him, his feeble attempts to get his car up his driveway would have been worth a single laugh for the visual humor, but no more than that.
Comedy like this takes aim at the powerful, at the rules and customs of society that we never see so clearly than when exposed by . . . the comedy itself. A weak response to oppression, you might say, since it doesn’t change a thing. Or does it? Perhaps such comic-ballistic moments open up ideas and possibilities in us that bear fruit later on.
Grief is revolutionary too, though somberly so. Grief can be disturbing, even if we sympathize with those it’s visited upon. The neighbor’s long face, the closed drapes, may seem to go on too long, to be a bit . . . unseemly, to break the rhythm of things and not in a good way.
Such encounters with grief can start a vicious cycle—disapproval or impatience followed by self-blame for your lack of charity, but not necessarily enough to stop the cycle. What may stop it, though, is the day your neighbor comes out his front door just after you come out yours and says, ‘James always took out the garbage and I always paid the bills. When I saw you bringing out yours . . . ” And just like that, your inner generosity has broken out of its cage.
This response to other’s grief involves having contact with it, or the chance that you might. Another response is less focused, less observational, less subject to the chances encounters and moments of everyday life, involving a global response of dread and a blotting out of another’s grief before it brings you down. Breaking this spell may require something dramatic. How that might happen is something I’ll take up again in this blog.
But coming back to the comic for a moment, which seems fair since here it’s paired with grief, have you had a Mr. Leonard in your life? If so, you may feel the urge to apologize, as I do long after he’s gone. But don’t forget to thank him, too.
