Lauren is a 30-something, agnostic, unmarried, Asian-American, woman who lives in the Bay Area.
David is 60-something, Zen Buddhist, married with an adult son, man who lives in Flint.
The Rules – They choose a topic, and with no discussion, each knocks out around 1,000 words. What you get is the straight scoop, the skinny, the 4-1-1 on what each one thinks.
Come back each month for more Lauren & David Write!
LAUREN: David, apparently all my tears have dried up. At least that’s what a female friend of mine once told me jokingly. I’m not much of a crier, and that’s weird and hard for a lot of people to grasp. “But you’re a girl. But your sister cries. Just let it all out.” they say. I don’t know what to tell you. There’s not much to let out. Sure, I well-up from time to time — people and pets being reunited with their families, Pixar movies, juicy onions — and a lone, glistening droplet will form and attempt to break the surface tension, wanting to follow the laws of gravity to run down my cheek… but it tends to get blinked away. Not because I’m embarrassed or because “big girls don’t cry”. That’s just … all there is in the reservoir.
I have learned to lean into my “404 error” of human emotion and will sometimes tell people that I’m just a caring robot, like Baymax from Big Hero 6 or Seven of Nine from Star Trek. It’s easier this way, it makes more sense for those around me. Society expects me to be sensitive, caring, and emotional; and I am those things, but not in the ways that I’m “supposed to be”. What gives?
My emotions are just that. Mine. They’re for me to experience. Why do I have to prove to you exactly what level of happy, or sad or angry, I am? If I can communicate with words (or potentially a lack thereof) and body language, why do you specifically need my tears to quantify my humanity? Is there a certain “cry quota” that I need to reach in order to be considered able to empathize?
Just because I don’t leak liquid out of tiny holes near my eyeballs doesn’t mean I don’t feel. In fact, I feel with the rest of my body.
DAVID: It’s curious, isn’t it, Lauren, how crying has become this litmus test for emotional strength? As a guy growing up in the 60s and 70s, the “big boys don’t cry” thing was very much present. Not so much in my house growing up, my folks were cool like that, but certainly, it was an overarching theme in the world. The whole Vince Lombardi/Bo Schembechler football coach “You ain’t hurt. Get back in the game” mentality hung over manhood.
Today, though, for many guys, it’s as if you can only demonstrate your depth of emotional well-being through tears. Guys talk all the time about how they’re wellin’ up. “Who’s choppin’ onions?” is synonymous with expressing a depth of emotion. If you don’t cry, there must be something wrong with you. You’re stunted, or trapped in an unhealthy paradigm, or not in touch with your true self.
But here’s my truth. I am not a crier. Never have been. When I got hurt physically as a kid, which happened all the damn time, I didn’t cry. Ditto for emotional stuff. It wasn’t like I didn’t suffer from hurt feelings, because I most assuredly did, I mean, adolescence just effing sucks, but I managed those emotions in other ways.
Still do.
LAUREN: While I don’t think I’ve ever had tears of joy, I feel positivity in my bones and my soul. When my close friends and family have gotten married, of course I’m happy for them! The couple of the hour is just glowing and everyone in attendance is radiating positivity. I, too, want all the good things for them, but there’s no outward proof for you. My hint of a smile is the only clue that a warmth is pouring over me, my shoulders are relaxing as they settle into the present, and I’m wishing with all my being that I could give the moment a bear hug.
And I love a good laugh. The kind that catches you off guard, in the most perfect way, when you find you’ve gotten the giggles, close your eyes, and have a hard time catching your breath. I’ve laughed so hard it hurts, but alas, apparently not hard enough to squeeze out any saline. When I’m proud of myself or others, I simply can’t stop smiling, and possibly won’t be able to stop jumping around. Food is a beautiful thing and really amazing or comforting food makes me smile, my pitch goes up an octave as I exclaim “Mmmm!” with my mouth full, my legs might swing or bounce, and my shoulders start to move to a happy soundtrack that’s playing in my head.
DAVID: Anyone who has read any of my work: sonnets (especially the ones as my Dad was dying), any of the pieces I wrote about my brother when he was trying not to die of oral squamous cell cancer, my stuff about my own health issues – you read that, you know I am easily moved and touched. But I don’t cry. Not big, ugly sobs, ever.
When my brother Michael died in December, 2012, I recall I cried a little. We were close, Mikey and me. He was my baby brother. So I cried some. On my own. Not in public; not that I’m not a public person, hell, my whole social media life, the good and bad and everything in between is public, but they were my tears, Lauren, they belonged to me, and so I cried in private.
My dad died in January, 2019. Mort and I were as close as a Father and son can be. Lauren, I was so damn proud of him, and happy for him, too. He was 87, a retired compassionate physician who was on home dialysis. He decided to stop his care.
“I’m tired of waking up feeling like shit every day, knowing I’m not gonna get any better. And then, Christ, I gotta do it again the next day.”
We threw him one helluva six day wake. Great food and drink and memories shared every day. And one day, he didn’t wake up. I miss the crap out of him, but any welling I did was joy that he got to choose his way out.
LAUREN: Sadness? Ugh… while waterworks are not typically in my forecast, I certainly feel pain and anguish and grief. I may be younger than you, but I have absolutely had my fair share of overwhelming struggle and loss. Oftentimes, I’m processing in the moment (like the robot that I am), and the emotions hit me on a delay. Oh boy, when they do hit, though, they hit hard. I can feel gravity pull harder at my body, my chest crumples like a piece of paper, my throat gets tight, my mouth gets dry, I stop swallowing, and the rest of my mind goes blank. Everything seems to fade into the background, except for the storm of thoughts that come flooding in: How could this have happened? Was it something I did? Should I have done something differently? How is this fair? What am I going to do now? What does this mean for my future? What if things were different?
I may not cry very often, David; but, I promise you, I feel. Maybe I’m just wired a little differently.
DAVID: Lemme tell you, Lauren, about the few times I did cry. One week after Dad died, our precious dachshund Otzi suffered a massive hemangioma on her liver. I cried a bit when we put her down. 18 months later, my beloved Lucy, our border collie/corgi and my partner in crime, needed to be put down. She was just old. I cried a bunch. This past March, seven months after we lost Lucy, our amazing Millie, a Portuguese Podengo filled with joy and boundless enthusiasm, developed a terrible brain tumor and we had to put her down, too. Yes, I cried. Not the ugly sobs, but still, I needed a Kleenex.
Weird, eh, that I cried for our dogs? I have always felt a kinship and connection with animals, as far back as I can remember. I am honor-bound to treat them with such kindness; their lives are in our keeping, and perhaps, too, they don’t sense that the end is the end the way people do. As a human who has faced serious health issues, I think deeply on my own death every day. Our dogs probably can’t do that, so at the end, I must take that on for them. So, I cry for my dogs.
My wife reminded that there is one time I can be reliably relied upon to snuffle.
Ray and John Kinsella are standing on the baseball field Ray built in his cornfield. Ray is John’s son, but here, in the field of dreams, John is perhaps 20 years old and Ray is 40. John has just finished a ball game, still clad in his gear.
RAY: You catch a good game.
JOHN: Thank-you It’s so beautiful here. Amazing. For me, it’s like a dream come true. I ask you something? Is this heaven?
RAY: It’s Iowa.
JOHN: Iowa?
RAY: Yeah.
JOHN: Coulda swore it was heaven.
RAY: Is there a heaven?
JOHN: Oh, yeah. It’s the place dreams come true.
RAY(looks over his shoulder, sees wife and daughter on porch of farmhouse in the evening’s dusky light, daughter giggles): Hmmm. Maybe this is heaven.
JOHN: Good night, Ray.
RAY: G’night, John.
RAY: Hey… … Dad? You wanna have a catch?
JOHN: I’d like that.
Even men who proudly claim “I never cry” will own up to crying at that scene. Me, I get a snuffly every damn time, which is weird because my Dad and me, we had an excellent relationship. Hell, we even recovered from those 3 years from 13-15 when I was mostly a raging asshat. But every parent-child relationship has its own special drama. Maybe that’s a subject for our next piece, Lauren?
Mostly, though, I don’t cry, but still I feel. I feel a lot. Sometimes, it is soul-crushing. Sometimes, it is immensely joyful. What do I do? Well, Lauren, you know I’m a writer, a poet, so much of my grief shows up in my work. I’m a musician,too- sitting down at the piano or picking up a guitar in grief is amazingly cathartic, creative, and soul-satisfying.
And always, I sit. I’ve had a mindfulness practice since the 1980s. Grief sends me to my cushion to sit and meditate upon the singular and astonishing idea that we are each here for a flash and that the refusal to acknowledge that fact steals the bliss of the present from you.
So, yeah, I’m not much of a crier, Lauren. Despite that, I do feel nearly everything deeply, down to the core of my self.
My tears are words on paper.
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This post is republished on Medium.
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