quite absurd really

PHOTOS FROM OMETEPE ISLAND, NICARAGUA 

There I was briskly walking down the shop lined and traffic filled streets of Xela, Guatemala. It is something I do all the days I am here. All I could do was grin and be so thankful for my wonderful appreciation of the absurd. I was carrying a mini-cup of my own urine and my sidekick, Blanca, had hundreds of dollars in local currency in a plastic bag shoved in the upper area of her crotch. I looked at Blanca, my host-mother, laughed and mentioned that we were quite a pair. She agreed. I dropped my urine off for a $4.00 testing and we continued on to drop her money at its proper place. Her granddaughter had to have her appendix taken out so she borrowed the cash to pay the private hospital and apparently no buses go to the hospital. She’s a good walker, that Blanca, and fast for being a foot shorter than me or maybe we were both a little wary of getting robbed. Letting yourself be absurd or being aware of it, if done mistakenly, and relishing in the moments is quite refreshing.

Some synonyms for “absurd” provided by Miriam-Webster are:

fantastic, bizarre, crazy, foolish, insane, nonsensical, preposterous, unreal, wild 

Life should be all of those things or at least I want my life to be all of those things. Actually, I want to use those words to describe myself as well.

It seems that children have the most developed talent when it comes to being absurd. I envy their ease to slip into a place that maybe does not exist for adults or their certainty that what they are thinking is actually true. I visited family in Memphis this past March and Nina, my niece who is four, invited me to build a fox nest with her. It was a grand moment and we spent the time to make it really nice and comfortable. We even provided food for them. Later that day, I was thinking how easily I believed that what we were doing was real. Real is what you want it to be and pretending is just a word used for those who are scared to let themselves go. We returned the next day to check on the nest and feed them again. Some people might say foxes have dens and not nests but whatever they are called, building a fox nest with Nina was fantastic. It seems such a shame that at some point children lose their ability to be completely bizarre and they start holding their imagination back. They get stifled into being a bit more boring so people might not think them weird. The tolerance for them being unreal decreases quickly.

I hope people find me weird. I find all of the people close to me at least a little weird in a marvelous way. I like make believe (or is it truly believing), talking in funny accents, bringing inanimate objects to life (especially stick ponies), putting on a good costume (pleather with Nate for ocean jump-ins), dancing before breakfast in bathrobes on Catalina, reading children’s story books aloud with friends, becoming characters aboard a vessel (Lady Hornsby, Sharkfoot, Captain Luigi), having nonsensical family conversations with my brother, and doing an assortment of things that might be seen as being foolish, insane or even crazy. Perhaps living life absurdly is the best remedy for being uptight, stressed or bored.

Creating an environment for being preposterous can take time because people are afraid to just join right in. They don’t want to be seen as weird. Maybe you have to find people who never fully lost the ability to be a bit absurd but there is nothing wrong with encouraging those you care about to give it a go.

Having my father always make the “rat face” when we were too far away to speak (he still does this) or creating characters like “Fingers”  (recently reborn for the grandkids) might have helped nurture my absurdity seed. Real friendships seem to blossom when I have someone on board for a wild bit of shenanigans, be it via conversation or event. I guess the bottom line is, I love to laugh and I find that being absurd brings the most plentiful amount of this magical potion. You have to give into it, seek it and encourage it. Making life a little less serious can certainly help you enjoy it a whole lot more. So get a little crazy ya’ll!

Any absurd ideas or suggestions on being more absurd?

PHOTOS FROM GRANADA, NICARAGUA