On remembering to laugh
okay, so maybe you had to be there
It’s Saturday morning at 8:00 am and we’re sitting in bed drinking coffee. The dog is with us lying on his side looking sleepily out the windows to my neighbor’s yard. One of them above the air conditioning grate is steamed up.
A few minutes ago, my spouse Janyce walked in with a coffee cup, set it down on the nightstand on my side and yanked open the window. “It’s nice out. It’s actually a little drier and cool,” she said. I can hear the faint sound of birds singing. The day is just beginning, the sun trying to break away from the clouds, full of weekend promise, and I’m sitting upright staring at my computer screen as emails start pouring in, some from work, some from my various newsletters about the latest virus statistics. I’m paralyzed by anxiety, both hands wrapped around my cup.
“What do you have planned today?” I say.
“Well, I have to start our taxes for one,” says Janyce.
“Right,” I say.
“And we had plans to pick up your perennials and go to lunch,” she says.
“I can’t. I think I have to cancel everything. I’m not up for it,” I say.
“I know,” she says, and leans over to give me a hug.
All week we have been watching a series on Hulu at the end of the day called Better Things. This is an older program from a few years back that was recommended on one of those What to watch while in quarantine lists that landed in my gmail inbox. I like this particular show because the woman is my age, a working mother and artist, and she is raising three kids, two of them are teenagers. I remember when her life was my life and I miss it.
Right at the start of my relationship with Janyce, I lived alone in an apartment for a few years while raising two teenage boys. Life was messy. But life was hilarious, too. I wrote a blog during those years called Life with Teenagers on a Wordpress platform. I’ve since taken it down and made it not searchable through Google. It wasn’t my best writing, but it was priceless content that I hope to do something with at some point. It was often simply a slice of our life written through conversation, the three of us talking over a hastily made dinner in the kitchen while exchanging the news of the day and the trials of being a teenager. And Chuck Norris jokes. It was the best three years of my life.
Janyce is sitting beside me now with her laptop balanced on her lap.
“Kris, listen to this.” she says. I break away from my computer screen and turn to look at her.
“Can I read you something? This is from my father. He sent me an email this morning.”
Janyce starts to read the words out loud.
“This is from a book called Disorder in the Courts and are things people actually said in court, word for word” she says.
ATTORNEY: How old is your son, the one living with you?
WITNESS: Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can't remember which.
ATTORNEY: How long has he lived with you?
WITNESS: Forty-five years.
I finish swallowing my sip of coffee to keep from spitting it out. Janyce is holding her stomach and taking a big inhale. “Here’s another” she says.
ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?
WITNESS: Are you shitting me?
ATTORNEY: She had three children, right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
WITNESS: Your Honor, I think I need a different attorney. Can I get a new attorney?
“Wait, here’s another one” she says.
ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?WITNESS: Oral...
“Oh my god, you have to thank your father for me. I so needed this laugh this morning.” I say.
“And by the way, this coffee is amazing.”