The Sacredness of Tears

When I was in 2nd grade, we lived in South Dakota for a year.  Cold cold cold baby to a native Californian.  I remember during the wickedest winter months, before crawling under the weight of many blankets, I'd make a neat stack on the floor next to my bed.   It would be right there for me in the morning, my feet wouldn't even have to touch the floor.  Books and paper dolls and comic books all at the ready to be enjoyed in a warm warm bed on an icy winter morning.

Fast forward over two score, and everything I need is at the ready, next to my bed.  Candles and snow globes, damn Trader Joe tissues, phone and ipod.  Bottled water. Cards you have sent me, my journal. Gone With the Wind, poetry books, prayer books.  Two large woven baskets on the floor filled with magazines, my fetish.  A pink bear.  A white and pink lamb. Pens and pencils and post-its.  My netbook. Nausea meds and throat lozenges.  A nail file and polish.  Lip balms and lotion.  Reading glasses and a small pocket calendar so I don't forget what I probably would forget if not for the calendar. A small photo album.  and a small handmade felt covered book with alphabet beads sewn across the front that spell "good thoughts."

When I write at night, and talk to you, I look at these things, and I feel content.  Like a mouse in her house.  I have what I need.

Not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck. The Dalai Lama

I am thinking about this tonight.  The things I desperately wanted and did not get.  The things I never wanted and learned to accept.  The things I have taken for granted that still graciously bless my life every day.

I wish I could live this life better.  Fearlessly, graciously, openly living this life better.

I often fail where I would most like to do good.  I love and it goes all wrong.

An act of love that fails is just as much a part of the divine life as an act of love that succeeds, for love is measured by fullness, not by reception.  Harold Loukes 

Thank you Harold.  For all the times I loved and it came out all wrong, this I know for sure, I have always loved with fullness.

Some people are harder to love than others.  Some people don't want to be loved.  Some people don't believe they are lovable.  Some people, if you try to love them, will arm themselves against you.

I guess I read too many fairy tales, saw too many Disney movies, believing you just have to try harder and love will conquer and cure everything.

Sometimes you just have to love from a distance, or send it to the moon and hope it finds its way into that person's heart while they sleep.  Or gently lights on them like a leaf in the Fall.

I don't think, even when it does not succeed, that love is ever wasted.

Love is never lost.  If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart.  Washington Irving

I have a very soft and purified heart.

When I went to get my shot today, they were worried about me.  Vonda is used to seeing me strong and funny.  She is not used to seeing me fragile like yesterday.  She obviously told Kitty because they double teamed me today.  Don't think I don't know what you two ladies were up to, giving me the love and making sure I was OK.

I'm OK.

I just had to cry a lot yesterday, about a lot of things, some to do with cancer, some not.

This Washington Irving really gets me.  I would liked to have known him and hear him read the things he wrote.  Listen to this one.

There is a sacredness in tears.  They are not the mark of weakness, but of power.  They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues.  They are messengers of overwhelming grief...  and unspeakable love.  Washington Irving.

You remember him I know from sophomore English, he was an American author and wrote "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle" among other things.

I'd like to go to Sleepy Hollow, New York, some day.

I will sit near his gravestone in the cemetery there and read out loud to him about the sacredness of tears.

Sometimes you just have to cry, hot inky tears spilling down your face like words, when words will not do.