what would captain america say?
/I recently heard that a normal, healthy person is one who eventually sees the humor in a situation, while a comic is one who sees it right away.
Don’t we all wish we could be comics right now.
Because if you’re like most of us, it’s been hard to find the last two weeks funny. Absurd or pathetic or sad or scary or bizarre -- but funny might not be the first word that comes to mind.
But we’re trying, right? We’re trying to see if we can calm our nerves and find the humor, the laugh, even the giant guffaw and not pretend we’re superheroes trying to hold up the whole wide world.
Especially tough when you’re not another kind of comic, Captain America, who once said, “I don't like bullies; I don't care where they're from."
Most of us have shown we agree.
I bet Captain America would also agree humor is medicine. He said, “You know for the longest time I dreamed about coming overseas and being on the front lines. Serving my country. I finally get everything I wanted, and I’m wearing tights.”
Hiking with friends these past couple of weeks, sharing champagne with neighbors on the street, sitting around my campfire with more champagne, answering texts from friends around the world, checking in with just about everyone I know who’s been equally stressed by the past four years -- and equally hoping the next four will be different -- we all seemed to be holding onto something that was preventing the humor medicine from working.
Soon, we said, we’ll get there soon. But not quite yet.
Because first, it seems, like mini-Avengers, we want to join forces and moan, let it all hang out, dissect this whole thing together, kumbaya together, before we can rise up, have a great dose of humor medicine and move forward.
“I’m not ready yet,” someone said. “It’s my indignation, and I’m having it.”
Here are some of the other things I heard around my celebrations:
“I can never forgive.”
“My whole family is fractured.”
“My 5-year-old grandson asked me if the president was nice, and I said no. I don’t know how to explain that.”
“My daughter is gay, and if I talk to my neighbor who put up that lawn sign, she’ll think I’m not standing up for her.”
“How will we ever heal this country?”
“What other chaos will happen between now and January? We can’t let our guard down.”
“I’ll never look at America the same again.”
The great comedian Erma Bombeck once said, “When humor goes, there goes civilization.”
I guess that means in the midst of all this craziness -- with our civilization on a razor edge -- we need to find some humor in the situation and the sooner the better. Can we do it?
“The hell I can’t! I’m a Captain!”
Captain America once said that too.
We’re all captains of our own reactions. We all want to learn how to live together in a civilized way. A good laugh right about now -- or at least soon -- could be just what the doctor ordered.