By Susan Dromey Heeter, Joyful Musings
Happy final Saturday of 2018, dear Joyful Musers. I am continuing my Christmas week of sloth and overload of carbs and cable by rerunning a column from 2018 that still makes me laugh; still brings about a giggle. May it remind you to laugh in 2018; may it remind you to embrace the levity of a moment, a person, your ever expanding girth. Be well. Happy New Year. Muse Joyfully.
Susan Dromey Heeter
It’s windy and cold and February. It’s winter. It is however, a wonderful time to muse joyfully on two of my favorite things: love and laughter. Truly, I think of the love part as more of chocolate love, but love nevertheless. When I ponder and muse joyfully on the upcoming Valentine’s Day, it’s not so much the romance of it, rather, the idea of a big heart box shaped box of chocolates. From Rite Aid. Or CVS. Or Walgreens. Yum. Love.
And then there is laughter to lighten up these winter doldrums. I delight in a good laugh, think fondly of my friend Anne with whom I’ve shared a myriad of “oh no, we’re going to get kicked out of this conference” chuckles. It’s glorious to sit next to her when something serious is being presented, an endless power point perhaps, a sermon. We laugh and attempt to stifle those giggles which, of course, make them all the more fun. A laugh in a most inopportune moment is, well, simply the best.
My brother Phil and cousin Paul are both in their fifties now but I think of them as perennial five year olds. Their shoulders once shook so hard at a relative’s funeral, they had to leave. Leave. They could not sit in the pew during a reading by one of my cousins and had to get up, go out to the foyer and release their giggles so as not to disturb the service. I still laugh at this; my eyes tear up at the thought of these grown men laughing so hard they, literally, could not stop. And I was not even there, still I laugh at the sharing of this, still giggle at the thought.
And if my friends don’t make me laugh, it’s truly, hard to remain friends. I need levity, people; the world can be so uber serious, so downtrodden. When I see my friend, Vicki, I know she’s going to say something ridiculous, something everyone in the room is thinking but does not have the courage to say. When our friend, Julie, had noticeably gained some weight, Vicki remarked, “Hey, Julie, your ass is looking huuuuge.” And Julie, who knows Vicki well enough to know only Vicki could make this remark without getting killed, responded, “I know! I know! It’s the doughnuts, the doughnuts!” And suffice it to say, Julie is in my “Friend Who Makes Me Laugh Club” – And if we can’t laugh at our winter weight gain, our love affair with doughnuts, our friends who point out our ever expanding rear ends, at what can we laugh?
May you, dear readers, enjoy the levity and joy of a good laugh. May you sit next to someone at your next seminar, lecture, power point and laugh so hard you have to leave. Leave. May your eyes tear up, may you muse ever so joyfully on the humor of it all. I know I will – while eating my heart shaped box of chocolates…and maybe even some doughnuts.
Susan Dromey Heeter, a writer from Dover who recently let her hair go au natural white, debuts her new column “Joyful Musings” at InDepthNH.org. Dromey Heeter is a secondary Spanish Teacher at Spaulding High School in Rochester and the mother of two teenage daughters. Writing has been her passion since her English majoring days at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Dromey Heeter has lived in The Netherlands, Alaska and currently basks in all things New England, including the frigid winters. An avid swimmer, Dromey Heeter’s great passion is to bring back body surfing as most children have no idea how to ride waves without ridiculous boogie boards. She also writes about thrift shopping and all things frugal in a column called “Budget Vogue” for the New Hampshire Union Leader.