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i was crying because the spinach was dying, and big swaths of it hadn’t germinated and i didn’t understand why. i was crying because i was sick with a persistent cold (i still am) and i didn’t want to be sick anymore but had no control over how long it really hung around, but i was also crying because i felt i needed to keep working even though i was sick because there was so much work to do on the farm and because i felt scared that if i used my sick days when i wasn’t absolutely demolished by illness, i would regret it down the road. i was crying because harvey had spent 1-4 am the last night and the night before licking his chops and then finally vomiting on our third trip outside and i didn’t know why he was so sick and if it would be that way forever. i was crying because i felt scared that everything would feel so sad forever.
i was crying because my employer had told me i looked really ill and exhausted and that i should go lay down, and i felt validation and shame in the same breath. i was crying because i missed my mother and my father and someday they will both die. i was crying because i still regret how i treated my brother when he was 6 and i was 9. i was crying because it was so hot that day and i felt so sad that my enjoyment of heat is interrupted by the knowledge that we could run out of drinkable water in the world within my lifetime. i was crying because i kept trying not to cry and not to feel sad and just to feel grateful and delighted and i felt angry with myself for being so eternally full of grief and dissatisfaction when i do my best to care for myself well. i was crying because i could feel my own disappointment with myself and my own anger about my sadness and i felt heartbroken that not all of me was welcome in my own body. i was crying because i wanted and needed to cry and sometimes my heartbrokenness demands to be felt.
here’s what i was listening to while crying, coming out of my partner’s phone as we moved down the aisle of dirt, our hands busy and working automatically as if petting a puppy:
this is from “pilgrim at tinker creek,” which is one of the most important books in the world to me and a very spiritual text. she does talk about “eskimos” a lot, which i don’t like. here’s some more of that chapter if you’re interested. i stopped crying after hearing this part and started feeling like something important instead of annoying and burdensome was happening inside me.
i only have a little sliver of time to write instead of my usual sprawling hour or two and want to make sure i say SOMETHING while i can. what is your relationship to crying? do you like the physical sensations of it? does it send you spiraling, or bring you back to center? do you feel heartbroken right now, or pretty ok, or both? thanks for reading this short missive. thinking of you.
I hardly ever cry. As a child, I was mocked and shamed when I cried. They other day, some things happened at work that were really, really, really hard. I was driving home and I felt the tickling in my the bridge of my nose and I tried to stop it, but then I was like, oh wow, I think I feel like crying. I never feel like crying. I was alone in the car. No one would mock me. I couldn't help it anyway. Something was triggered that day that at work that dodged every roadblock I had learned to set up against tears coming out of my head. I felt the water blur my vision, I felt the water roll down my cheeks. I wanted to pull over and I wanted to give everything over to sobbing. But I was driving. And I was done working. And I wanted to get home and I was so close to home. In an ideal world, I would be at home, and I would be having these sensations and I would call Beth and I would tell her what happened and I would finally, finally, finally sob. Damn. I was driving.
I love you so much!!!!