Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Laughter tears words

Laughter, body-shaking, straight up from the belly, tears streaming down laughter never perplexes anyone. Making love requires very little conversation or explanation. It’s about the same in all languages. Anyone in the world knows that weeping empties grief from the heart. We see someone laugh or cry, or a couple looking straight into each other’s eyes, we don’t wonder what they’re feeling.

I said recently that “words are liars by their very nature.” But I spend the entire weekend (and this isn’t the first time) sitting in front of computer until my ass is numb and my eyes are crossing, writing.

Why?

I’ve just commented on Marigoldie’s site – making her wonder if she’s coming across differently than she intended. The very thing I was just saying happens to me here at Life On Earth sometimes.

She’s a very talented writer. It’s hard to miss the picture she paints – but easy to look through your own life experience, (which is, let’s face it, what you’ve got) and then you may see things from a different angle than the writer does. Whether it’s her, me or anyone else. It’s like the story of the blind men trying to describe an elephant – one touching the elephants’ tail, one touching the trunk and so forth.

But sometimes, we manage it, we insomniac scribblers. We manage to say something so clearly, so purely, that it’s like watching someone laugh from the belly or cry from the heart – we wring the truth out of those words. I’ve seen that happen on each and every blog I’ve linked to - which is why the link is there. I’m thinking of posting a list of my favorite pieces to make a record of the entries that kept me going back to visit the same writers, again and again.

Meanwhile, I’d like to refer you to this recent entry on Mr. Head’s blog, which touched me enormously.