Friendship
Nona’s Mouse
Good Lord laughter is such good medicine. I take a daily dose and not just a spoonful of ‘ha-ha’ laughter either. I’m talking about deep, stomach tightening, oxygen using laughter.
July 10, 2023
Good Lord laughter is such good medicine. I take a daily dose and not just a spoonful of ‘ha-ha’ laughter either. I’m talking about deep, stomach tightening, oxygen using laughter.
I think there’s a trick to this whole thing: Let go of what you were good at, I mean really let it go and replace it by doing something good.
It makes the decision my parents had made to move lock stock and barrel to Canada, halfway around the world from everything they knew, all the more extraordinary. They could not have possibly understood all that lay ahead. I do know, as I have reflected back, that it was the greatest gift I have ever received.
And off we went on a wild imaginative ride, full of characters and animals and monsters and adventure and climax and resolution. Freddy created a complete story without every having been taught how to put one together. And. he was joyful and spirited and physical and exuberant. Good Lord it was wonderful to be with him. It was Freddy and his good friend Joie de Vivre just loving life.
David Larsen was the greatest friend I ever had and one of the most important influences in my life. No man, save my father and my two sons has had more impact on my life. No man, save my father and my two sons have I loved as I have David.
“I’m sorry Tony, I know you don’t like to be interrupted before court but I had to see you. I’m heading out of town for a while, going down to Expo and I need you to deal with this bastard!”
Lincoln Man redoubled and went to open the door of his car. I went full Clint Eastwood on him, fixing him with an unblinking ‘I’m going to mess you up’ stare.
“You don’t want to do that Old Man!” I said in my most threatening seventy-three year old voice.
Communicating is not about being heard, it’s about being understood so I have to use words that are meaningful to the reader or to my listener. And now they ban words. Who bans words? Well other than Republicans in Florida I mean?
Writing for profit is a fool’s game. I don’t, I write for myself. Some of my writing is profound, some is important, but most of it is neither of those two things. I am at my best as an observational humourist, filtering the mundane through the ‘amusing’ lens and writing.
David Sedaris is a great American observational humourist and he has unknowingly guided me as I spelunked my way through many a dark, confusing writing tunnel. He taught me to stop worrying about inspiration. He says that human beings are very funny, hilarious at times. The knack he says is to get better at seeing it. He is right, if I have grown as a writer it is because I am better now at ‘seeing’ us as we are, simple and complex, shallow and profound, tragic and hilarious. We are endlessly fascinating, a never ending source of writing inspiration.
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