In a conversation I had with a few close friends the other day, I shared “I cry everyday - a few times a day at least for sure, for one reason or another," (I can’t even quite remember how this became our conversation, but here we were.) Just to make sure she’d heard right, my friend repeated back to me, “You cry everyday?”
“Oh yes. I’ve already cried three times today.” It was 9:30am on a Sunday morning.
“I saw two Canada geese crossing the road and got a little teary at the thought of them mating for life.” What a beautiful phenomenon in nature that this species of bird will stick with one another, never straying except through loss.
“I gave a bag with money and food inside it to a woman sitting outside of the Starbucks.” I walked away praying that the heart on the bag drawn in sharpie and kept carefully in the console of our car, and the way she and I looked into each others’ eyes would spark the memory of Who She Is. I cried wondering if I'd conveyed what my heart had intended for her to hear in her own in those few short moments.
And my husband had sent a Mother’s Day message to me with such kind and beautiful words, I had a hard time reading them without my eyes spilling over, which I’d kept to myself for being the third reason of the early day. I didn’t think I’d be able to get it out of my mouth without crying.
The feelings behind my tears each day vary in what spurs them - joyfulness, pain, melancholy, yearning, gratitude - usually a recognition of a blessing in one form or another.
I cannot get through the movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” without scrunching up my face at every other scene. The pain on George Bailey’s boyhood face when the pharmacist smacks him for delaying the tainted drug delivery, the way Clarence’s voice sounds when he says, “I like this George Bailey.” There is so much love and truth contained in this timeless film.
Certain high notes in the composition of Moon River; the harmony of Simon & Garfunkel’s voices at that climactic point in, “The Boxer.”
The thought of a friend making herself a priority. The miracle of a gift received. These things all get to me and I bubble over.
And this.
This sun halo was spotted by Cooper on Sunday as we were leaving a baseball tournament. I’d been short on patience and long on emotions as I navigated Mother’s Day bouncing somewhere between deep feelings of grief and gratitude throughout the day. As we were leaving the park I half-listened to him talk about how the sun looked like it had a big ring around it in the sunglasses he was wearing. Packing up the car and staving off Cooper’s supreme frustration of having eye-black that was now running down his face and requiring immediate removal with the eye-black remover and cloths I did not have and re-routing the disappointment of a tournament coming to an end with the promise of ice cream, I sort of murmured, “oh yah? That’s cool,” as he mentioned again that the sun had a big rainbow around it. Parking my car at the nearest Shopper’s Drug Mart and stepping out, I glanced up at the sun only to see that Cooper was not seeing an illusion created by his shades but in fact had noticed this beautiful phenomena called a ‘halo.’
“Cooper! There IS a rainbow around the sun!” I exclaimed outside of the car.
“Told ya,” he said as he sat in the passenger seat looking in the visor mirror and waiting for me to get in and out of the store. And I cried.
This is the way it goes. My tears, which I consider to be “God Moments” - those points in an eternal space and time where my soul grows and I get to put a gem in the proverbial satchel where all treasures are placed and kept with me forever - are a part in parcel of my deep connection to the Universe, to the Divine. I tell you, that soul bag is like Mary Poppins’ carpet tote - infinite in capacity -and has to be at this point. I’ve picked up too many to count.
Author, Washington Irving, wrote, “There is a sacredness in tears. They are not a mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition and of unspeakable love.”
Each time you feel your own heart explode and your soul grow; when you cry from overwhelming pain or beauty, know you have experienced a miracle and allow it to be a reminder, that You are, in fact, a beloved child of the Universe - of God. Be moved to the point of tears, see the flow of salty water from the ducts of your eyes as the natural flow of life within and around you. What else might you be blocking in your life if you immediately stop or shame yourself for showing such a beautiful emotion and response to the miracles of your experience? Let it out! Let it go! Imagine the freedom of being swept away here and now with what IS and just releasing it all.
by Allie on May 16, 2023
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