passages. Some land in your chest and all that escapes are little bits of blow-
ing air pushing through your nose like short trumpet blasts. If it weren’t for
your shaking shoulders and smile spread across your face, people wouldn’t
know you were laughing.
Whatever kind of laugh you’ve got – a giggle, a snort, a snicker, or a good old-
fashioned hee-haw – the depth of the sound, where it’s placed, and how much
of it you allow to come out, indicate your mood and feelings.
A person who laughs from his boots is willing to release. He’s not afraid to
hold back. When he laughs, the world laughs with him.
Simon was at a family reunion, watching his two daughters playing with their
cousins. Whether it was the sunshine, the pleasure of being together with his
family, the naughty joke his father-in-law told him, or the three pints of beer
he’d drunk, he threw his head back, opened his mouth wide, and jiggled from
his boots to his shoulders as peals of laughter burst forth from his lips. His
wife and her parents got caught up in Simon’s laughter, and ended up laugh-
ing so hard that tears streamed out of their eyes.
Sometimes laughing is inappropriate, but impossible to restrain.
Frederika was kneeling in church, supposedly praying, when her mobile
phone vibrated in her jacket pocket. She carefully removed it, so as not to be
seen by her father, who was sitting one seat away from her. Frederika opened
the text message from her friend, who had sent her a joke. Frederika read it
silently to herself until she got to the unexpected punch line, at which point a
snort of laughter escaped from her nose before she could stop it. Her father
cast her a disapproving look, which made Frederika’s laughter increase. She
finally had to hold her lips shut and squeeze her nose to keep any more
sound escaping from her mouth.
Chapter 6: Lip Reading 103