Dreams I’ll Send You | Essay 3

A birthday month practice

A copy of the book “Laughing to Keep from Crying” by Langston Hughes, my birthday twin, at the Edges of Ailey exhibit at the Whitney Museum.

For the month of February 2025, I’ve decided to publish a micro essay once a day. I described the why and what over here.

I’ve found myself saying the phrase “laugh to keep from crying” a few times over the past few weeks. I love laughter. Guffaws, giggles, snorts, or roars. There’s always that one person who has a laugh like nails on a chalkboard, but in most other cases, I love the sound and act of laughing. My mother used to laugh dil khol ke, with her heart wide open, and peals of her laughter would tintinnabulate throughout whichever room she was in. She was known for it. (One of the compliments that fills my soul is when people tell me I look like my mother or, better yet, that I laugh like her.)

So I keep looking for things — shows, books, videos on social media, bald cynicism from friends — that will make me laugh like her. A laugh that starts at the bottom of my core and radiates out. Or something that at the very least will make me giggle. This timeline we are living in seems filled with clowns to the left and jokers to the right — and what else can we do but laugh at them?

I suppose we can cry, too. I teared up a few times last week, when I heard on the same day that WIC and Meals on Wheels and Medicaid would be gutted. The idea of people starving, panicking about where there next meal will come from, gets my blood up, and tears of rage or grief are sometimes what’s needed.

“Laughing to keep from crying.” Hm. I do love the phrase. Most of the time, it’s apt. But in these times, I don’t think I want to keep from crying. I want to be able to do both. I want to feel and think and dream it all.

Essay 4 is here.