Who's Sad in America?

THE MAN WHO WROTE THE BOOK ON CRYING is.

He is quick with a laugh. He has a pliable face and open eyes. He raked at his cobb salad and told me stories of writing the book on crying. Personal stories … well, rehearsed personal stories after book tours, reviews and interviews. He was kind and approachable, in soft colors and fabrics, and I was relieved.

He told me he was a musician. And here I thought he was a writer, even, a teacher. Said he was a juvenile delinquent. This man? REEEAlly? Maybe this was some, probably, ghetto envy, but he admitted to loitering in blues bars and ivory towers.

But he is sad. Only when asked about it, though. Otherwise, he was a confident open, friendly man raking a cobb salad on a Thursday afternoon in the hip Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles. Only when asked about sadness was he willing to think out loud about such things, willing to wait in the moment for my next question, willing to see where I took this lunch, open to the journey of my semantics investigating personal pain under the social guise of academia.

Even with all the social constructs holding onto both of us, I saw his sadness. He comes from a family of weepers, possibly indulged and abusive drama that he didn’t speak to, but he admitted to coming from a whole host of folks who ball. And I realized I had weeper envy.

I told him that the first chapter of his book that I cracked was the conclusion – “Conclusion: The End of Tears.”

I’m just not comfortable with the idea, and yet it’s all that I want, for myself, for anyone. No more drama. Walking away from sadness, forgetting how good I am at carrying the lousy around like an ID card, misremembering that loss is something I learned in one split second and spent a professional and personal life unsuccessfully cramming into a capitalistic writing persona of BOOK WRITER … or even worse … MANIFESTO WRITER.

I suppose I do think there is an end to tears, but never to sadness. Sadness and Happiness – conjoined soul sisters. One without the other is a reality of certain death. And I’m worn out with acting like, trying to be, asking others to help me, addicting myself to routines to avoid /help/resolve/deconstruct/delete/deprogram/depower my sadness just to fit into conversation at networking parties and family barbeques. I am sick of it. It’s impossible, really, especially when I see families receiving their fathers home after 5 years in Iraq with half a body, mind and faith left. Not when I see reality show after Dateline Special after NatGeo Special exploring the many taboo stories of injury and emotional abuse, and the fat layers covering our parents, kids and unfulfilled dreams. Not when the developers continue to create more and more communities away from the urban ills and diseases of the poor, the disenfranchised, the unincorporated, the culturally divergent in gated communities, military and prison industrial complexes renovated by Home Depot or junkyards. Not when I sit across from a stranger who has nothing common with me than a need to write about crying.

This is the truth. So genuine. SO real. So NOT HAPPY.

God.

Not everyone is happy all the time. Be depressed. Stop being so defensive about why you’re having a bad day. And let’s all stop blaming our employers, or our spouses or our diseases about why we feel bad. Maybe We. Just. Feel. Bad. Maybe it’s just that simple. Stop being so irrigated by stupid crap, like a turn of a phrase or the time spent waiting on a returned phonecall. Stop that crap.

If you’re pissed or sad, be pissed or sad. Don’t subvert that shit into passive aggressive notes on your boyfriend’s car or
working less on that proposal at work than you should just because you don’t want to appear a threat to your colleague who just lost his wife to an aneurysm. Sure, maybe he needs that job more than you do. If you’re sad for him, tell him. Be it. Write it, sing it, love that sadness, man. You’re ALIVE, pal, and his wife is not. And he still is here. Show him the loveliness of still being here. Stop bearing his burden. It’s his. Leave it to him. Allow him that. Be noble and take him out for a drink. Or hell, talk to him mindlessly about wireless connections in coffeehouses. Whatever, man, just don’t turn in a lousy proposal just because you feel sorry for him. Be your best, and love his sadness. Worship, revere, respect and revel in this major experience that you may have not been allowed . To have loved and lossed.

Life is nothing but chaos. So love it, or get the hell out, because you might be making it even more screwball annoying by trying to make sense out of it.

I’m just sayin’ … the man who wrote the book on crying also wrote the book on doing nothing. Who’s to say he’s not really doing anything but crying? Who’s to say that any of us aren’t doing anything else but feeling it?

~~~

Photo courtesy of StanfordAlumni.org.