Tears as a counter to numbness.
I sometimes have this really strange reaction when I am watching, observing something. It can be anything really and I have no idea when it will happen. My eyes slowly become watery and I realise that I’m crying. The moist, salty tears fall down my cheeks and I touch my face to check and see if it’s true. I’m surprised when I find that it is. Most probably no one notices as it’s a quiet moment and it passes. I’m not sure if it passes quickly because I don’t want others to make a fuss or because there is only a small stream of tears within me rather than a river.
The last time it happened I was watching the ocean. It was a beautiful sunny day and a peacefulness came over me. As I looked over the dark, undulating sea a slick black figure leaped out of the water and plunged back in again. I waited a moment watching the spot where it happened then a few seconds later the figure emerged again a few meters ahead of the place it had previously been. On and on it went. I realised I was watching a seal playing. The creature was frolicking in and out of the water without a care in the world. It was sheer joy to behold. Maybe that’s why I cried. Noticing beauty, simplicity and innocence is rare so that when it catches our attention by surprise it disarms us. And once we are disarmed and vulnerable maybe we become more open to allowing emotions to seep out of our shelled bodies.
I wonder if people cry more often than we think. A friend was visiting a city in Europe recently and commented that she noticed more people crying as they walked quickly on the streets to get to where they were going. She wondered if the city was more open to emotions that other places. I often see people walking to work or wherever they are going that they need to get to, crying. But you have to pay attention to see it. Sometimes it’s women with large black sunglasses on but you see the curled up lips anyway that signal weeping. Other times it’s children with scrunched up, red faces. Occasionally it’s men who might get misty-eyed when we chat about something that for whatever reason elicits a strong memory or feeling for them.
Crying is an antidote to the numbness that we sometimes feel in a world that can seem sterile. When I have these moments that I cry, it feels like a sign of life. It means I actually am feeling something. Yes it’s messy and maybe embarrassing (Why do we shy away from talking about crying or telling people that we were crying?) but it’s a sign of caring in a world where many don’t care. A sign of softness in a hard world.
I love what author Ross Gay has to say about weeping:
Weeping is a sign that we are “falling apart”.
I like that. Maybe we need to fall apart more often. We fall apart when we see beauty, when we experience tragedy, when we see the simplicity of all things, when we hear a heavenly piece of music. As we fall apart we become our most “radiant and needful”. I wonder if this is why we avoid letting others know when we cry- we become our most needful and that is not something that we cope with very well- our society tells us to be strong, to hold it together.
When I see someone walking by me on the street crying, I often want to stop, pat them on the shoulder and say gently “All will be well” or something like that. But I haven’t managed to do that yet.
I might get an angry reaction- I have invaded a private moment- the weeper thought they had a quiet, unnoticed space to grieve and I interrupted that. Or I wonder if they might cry more- a river, and we might then share an intimate moment between two strangers. I don’t know. I might try it one day. For now I’ll notice when people’s eyes become moist that it’s a sign something deep, beautiful and real is happening within. And that’s got to be a good thing.
Rev. Dr Karina Kreminski, Mission Catalyst – Formation and Fresh Expressions, Uniting Mission and Education. Karina also blogs, this article is reprinted with permission from This Wild and Precious Life.
