| A Word Edgewise by Mary Joe Clendenin |
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| A Word Edgewise by Mary Joe Clendenin |
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IT HURTS SO BAD I CAN'T STOP LAUGHING
It's funny how expressions of emotions are contrary to our true feelings, sometimes. We laugh when we feel like crying, cry when we are happy, with all the different portrayals in between. I was watching "1,000 Men and a Baby" the other night, a happy movie about sailors determined to rescue a Korean-American baby, and reached for a box of tissues to catch my tears.
People cry at weddings, though not because they are sad, but probably because of the beauty. With the playing of "The Star Spangled Banner" and parade of Old Glory, many eyes are damp with tears.
Women have the reputation of crying more than men, even when they are mad. Bill Mauldin, the creator of G. I. Joe, told, in a book about his boyhood in New Mexico, d that he had the embarrassing tendency of crying when he got mad. He got into numerous fights walking to and from grade school in High Rolls, and he cried as he fought furiously. The older boys egged him on and laughed at his tears.
I guess that such social reactions to boys' tears are why they don't like to be caught crying even after they become men. Easy tears seem to be associated with sissies. Is that why laughter comes to cover? Quick tears may not be the measure of a tender heart--nor laughter the measure of a hard heart.
We laugh at such odd times, too. When someone gets hurt, after the first seconds of shock, chances are someone will begin to laugh, even the victim. Just fall in some public place--the first reaction is to see who is watching and might laugh. It isn't that we like to see another in pain, perhaps its the acrobatics before the actual crash. I remember stepping in a hole on a church lawn, turning my ankle, and falling with a "plop". I would have laughed, too, if it hadn't hurt so bad.
Someone hits his finger with a hammer bringing instant tears to his own eyes, but probably laughter from the looker. Is it the idea of one being so cruel to himself, awkwardness?
Perhaps, the ridiculous coincidence is what causes the merriment. Even with unusual deaths, we are tempted to laugh. It isn't that we wanted the person to die, or that we are happy because that person breathed his last. It's the very idea of such a thing happening.
We can't explain away emotions. We can only accept them as a part of us, and allow them to expend themselves. To some extent, we can control the expressions of the emotions. Watching television last night about survivors, I was impressed by a statement made by the pilot who happened to be a passenger on a plane that crashed killing over 100 people in 1989. Although so many died, more than that lived due to the courage and expertise of the that pilot and the regular one of the plane who managed to land it with no hydraulic power. The passenger pilot felt guilty about the ones who lost lives. When the interviewer pointed out that it was not logical to feel guilt when he had been active in saving more. The pilot said, "Logic has nothing to do with it. Emotions rule in such situations-- and in the after shock."
Everything that happens to us mixes the comic and the tragic in unforeseen ways, and each of us must decide where the balance is to lie. Death is another happening with sprinkles of humor interwoven. Some activities place people in more danger than others. People who die accidently started their day with no inkling of doom. Those that go to war, wrestle with a crocodile, or rob a bank may be courting danger, but accidents happen--and there in lies humor.
Unexpected! Things even fall out of the sky! Aeschylus, a classical Greek dramatist, is supposed to have been killed by a tortoise falling on his bald head. A man named Ghulam of Sringagar was killed when a hawk dropped a viper that went down his neck. He was bitten and died instantly. The hawk came back and retrieved the viper.
Two men were killed when a ship's crane swung out of control and dropped a car on them as it was being unloaded at Tilbury Docks, Essex. A Brooklyn woman was killed when she was struck on the head by a flowerpot knocked off an eighth-floor window ledge. A dog accidentally pulled the trigger of a shotgun with its legs, killing the son of the owner while the three were traveling in a car.
It's not funny, McGee. But with laughter and tears so intertwined in our systems, who can tell by watching what emotion we are experiencing. I'm one of those that cries when I'm really angry, but then I cry when I accidently bring unintentional pain to another--and I laugh even when it hurts, like someone telling me a joke when I have a broken rib.
Reactions to emotions really do have their own way with most of us. The next time you see me laugh, I may be limping from arthritis.