I had forgotten what it was like to laugh. Like, truly laugh. The guttural, almost painful, type of laugh. The kind that starts in the pit of your stomach and works its way up to your chest, rendering you breathless through all the snorts and chortles, belly cramping from compulsory muscle contractions.
Of course, I’ve laughed since you’ve been gone. I’ve found things amusing, funny, silly. But the levity that comes with the aforementioned was missing; the feeling of weightlessness and vulnerability that allows a laugh to build from the core and escape the mouth as an exclamation of joy. Yeah, that. That was gone.
A few weeks ago, I found myself in Iceland with a group of women who changed that narrative.
I jumped onto the trip somewhat last minute. One of my dearest and oldest friends planned to go with a friend/co-worker, whom I had met once, and I wrangled a college friend to come along, too. On paper, we were a motley crew.
Our first stop, the Blue Lagoon. Probably the most talked about tourist destination in Iceland, it has expanded quite a bit since I was last there. I knew the ladies would gobble up the relaxing atmosphere and we had 8 hours between landing and Airbnb check-in, so it was the perfect first stop.
The lagoon features two separate walk-up bars. One serves smoothies, champagne, beer, etc. and the other skin care; you can order a shmear of silica mud, lava scrub, or algae mask to go with your bubbly. We opted for the silica mask first and spent a few minutes lathering the thick, cold mud onto our faces, carefully avoiding our eyes, lips, and hairline.
Faces sufficiently covered, we grabbed our drinks off the mask bar ledge and began our trek through the lagoon to a little spot devoid of other spa-goers. None of us had gotten much, if any, sleep on the flight and we were looking forward to relaxing in the hot water and cool air.
On our way to the cove we had scoped out, a woman stopped us. she and her husband were on their way to the mask bar when she exclaimed with a southern twang, “You all look so cute together! I need to take your photo – I have to show my girlfriends back home what they are missing!” We all smiled and acquiesced to her photo request. She offered to take one for us on one of our phones, and we in turn snapped a few of her and her husband.
“You ladies are just SO adorable. This place should plaster your photo all over their website”, she continued on.
After exchanging a few more well wishes and pleasantries, the four of us made our way to the cove. We spent a few glorious hours in the hot water before retreating to the restaurant for lunch.
We began flipping through the photos taken in the lagoon while languidly enjoying our meal; passing around both our phones and ribs over how exhausted we all looked. The silliness came to an abrupt halt when we got to the photo of the four of us in the silica mud mask. We all stared in abject horror at what we saw…
THIS.
And then it started. One of us chuckled, and it spread like wildfire around the table. It wasn’t just our ridiculous faces that wound us up, but also remembering how excited and complimentary the woman who took the photo was.
“No one will be persuaded to stop at the Blue Lagoon looking at this pic; we look like swamp monsters!”, was the gist of our table commentary.
One face in one particular photo stuck out as looking eerily familiar to a certain DC Comics villain, which in turn led to a rendition of “Joker Face” a la Lady Gaga. The laughing fits continued throughout lunch; faces red from lack of oxygen, stomachs sorely cramping, tears streaming down our cheeks. It became the running joke of the trip and elicited the same types of laughter each and every time it was brought up.
I’ve had to learn how to do everything without you. Brush my teeth. Make the bed. Grocery shop. Listen to music. Read. Write. Live. Breathe. Everything. all of it has been re-shaped since you’ve been gone. I just never expected to have to (or want to) learn how to laugh again.
But when your best friends’ face gets turned into a villainous instagram effect, how could i refuse?