From the Belly

The other day, Lionel and I had the biggest fight we’ve had since we got here. It was over the best place to store bottles of wine in the car while driving. You see, if you put them on the floor in the back (my idea), they clink and roll forward, slamming into the metal pieces under the seat…especially with the excuse for shocks Polly has on her. If you put them in the front, on the floor at your feet, it’s uncomfortable and you risk forgetting they’re there and giving them a good stomp. If you squeeze them between the two front seats, just behind the gearshift (Lionel’s brilliant thought)… well, let’s just say, that’s not a good idea either. So, fresh out of solutions, I stubbornly slammed the car door, hugged the bottles on my lap, and we raced home to drink the bloody things. We sat in silence for the first two glasses, skillfully ignoring each other like all good couples during a fight… and then while pouring the third, Lionel folded over in hysterical laughter. I tried to keep up a solid front for a few seconds, but I just couldn’t do it, so we both ended up flooded in tears and we laughed our way through ALL the bottles.

Laughter. It’s liberating beyond description. I think that’s what I’m most thankful for these days. I’d love to know what physically happens to you when you laugh, because for me, it makes everything feel all right. My mom laughs a lot, and I think it’s why her eyes are so bright. Lionel and I both grew up with a lot of laughter, but we had a few stressful months before we left Canada, so for a while there, we didn’t get around to laughing very much.

We were a little rusty when we left, and couldn’t really get the hang of it. We were kind of like Polly, churning our little motors, coughing up a giggle here and there, but not really getting a good roll. Looking back, I think what did it was this epic bike ride I mentioned in the last article.

The week of Marsha and Bernd’s wedding, Bernd’s father took the guys on a ride in honour of Bernd’s last few days as a bachelor. Of course, I wasn’t there, but from what I understand, he kept the distance and the route to himself and just took them away. It turns out that what he had planned was something out of a medieval torture manual. The story was spun in all its glory by Lionel, and our friend Darren, when they got back. They sat there, pale and shell-shocked, like two war veterans telling their wives about the days in the trenches. As told by them, the ride was 50km long, uphill all the way to Austria, with only a quick break for chocolate. Bionic Bernd and 60-something Papa Steel led the troops, while Bernd’s older brother rode behind, slow and steady, to make sure no soldier went astray. It was every man for himself. Darren went post to post, leaning on each one along the way, and then – at one fork in the road where Papa Steel said, “Ok, this way!” – Lionel noticed it was downhill the other way and tried to spark an insurrection by speeding ahead and yelling for all the men to follow. We were in tears watching them recount all this. They were having trouble holding their heads up, getting sounds out and keeping food in their mouths… and this was even before the Big Gun arrived. Nick. He’s Marsha’s brother, and he’s one of those guys who was born with a gift from up on High to make people laugh. By the time he was giving us his version of the story, we had all descended into our ugliest possible laughs, the kind where there’s just no more composure and your whole body has been recruited to support it.

This was only the first of so many good ones in the past 6 weeks… And I wanted to pay homage to it.

By the way, we finally sorted out the wine bottle dilemma. Basket with a blanket placed on the floor of the backseat, and wine bottles piled on top. Phew. Crisis averted.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 26th, 2006 at 5:50 am and is filed under She Said. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site. Add to del.icio.us.