“Tears are words the heart can’t express.”—Gerard Way

Tears have been on my mind lately. Though I don’t break down and sob very often (thankfully), I tear up easily. A touching commercial, passionate conversation or beautiful performance can all start the waterworks. Frankly, I should just carry a package of tissues with me at all times. I grew teary at my son’s graduation, at my stepfather’s funeral, and I’m attending our niece’s wedding in a couple of weeks where I expect multiple incidences of tearing up. The wedding will be so fraught with emotion: excitement, happiness, nostalgia (for her growing-up years and my own long-ago wedding), there’s zero chance I won’t cry at least once.

Tears are actually quite interesting. There are three basic types of tears, according to Wikipedia: basal tears (tears that lubricate the eyes), reflex tears (those caused by irritation of the eye or actions such as yawning), and psychic tears (tears caused by emotions—both positive and negative). Emotional tears are made up of different chemical compounds than those caused by eye irritants, including leucene enkephalin, a natural pain-killer, “which is suggested to be the mechanism behind the experience of crying from emotion making an individual feel better” (Wikipedia).  

Tears can be the result of sorrow, grief, wonder, admiration, pleasure, passionate feeling, even prolonged laughter. While it’s true that you can laugh till you cry, it’s also true that you can cry until you laugh! Sometimes you have to go through the suffering (instead of avoiding it or “stuffing” it) to get to the happier “other side.” Crying it out can be a therapeutic way to take a step towards those happier times. (Maybe we should buy stock in Kleenex?)

One interesting thing I’ve learned about happiness since beginning this blog is this: I need to feel and accept my feelings—all of them, not just the “happy” ones. There will be very happy times and some not so happy and they’re all a part of a happy life. There will be tears and laughter (sometimes at the same time) and that is the way it should be.

What makes you tear up?

“Everyone wants the easy fix. They’re bewitched by the idea that there is an easy road to harmony and happiness. But the truth is, it’s hard to be happy! People are complicated, and things go wrong. We have physical frailties, restless spirits, souls to fill. We’re constantly facing physical and emotional challenges. But these challenges are karmic gifts. They give us the opportunity to master our thoughts, to understand ourselves better. Suppressing emotion is the antithesis of advancement,” she continued. “You become a prisoner of your own emotions. You won’t progress on your journey.”

—Mary T. Browne, quoted in Valerie Frankel’s It’s Hard Not to Hate You

Last week was a tough week. Why is it every time I schedule some down time for myself, everything seems to go wrong? Nothing major, just a series of minorly-worrying events that taken together made me feel battered by week’s end.

Finally, Saturday came—a day of noticing the gifts right under my nose and a chance to rebalance. Some of Saturday’s gifts:

These simple pleasures helped me remember how many gifts I really have—good health, a family I love, precious friends, amazing animals, and resources for entertainment and education through the library. So many gifts, if I stop to notice them.

What gifts have you noticed lately?

One of the privileges of being U.S. Poet Laureate was to choose two poets each year to receive a $10,000 fellowship, funded by the Witter Bynner Foundation. Joseph Stroud, who lives in California, was one of my choices. This poem is representative of his clear-eyed, imaginative poetry. [Introduction by Ted Kooser.]

Night in Day

The night never wants to end, to give itself over   

to light. So it traps itself in things: obsidian, crows.   

Even on summer solstice, the day of light’s great   

triumph, where fields of sunflowers guzzle in the sun—   

we break open the watermelon and spit out   

black seeds, bits of night glistening on the grass.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2009 by Joseph Stroud, and reprinted from his recent book of poems, “Of This World: New and Selected Poems 1966-2006,” Copper Canyon Press, 2009, by permission of the author and publisher. Introduction copyright © 2013 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.

“Celebrate what you want to see more of.”

—Tom Peters

I want to see more lazy summer afternoons with a good book, delicious meals, conversations with friends, hugs from my family, quality time with my horse…

What do you want to see more of?

Remember those summer reading lists we used to get when we were in school—books that were either required or “recommended” for us to read before school started the next year? Even though I’ve always loved reading, I used to hate those lists. Rarely did they contain something I wanted to read, and somehow it took some of the fun out of reading when it was assigned. Even now, I’m an extremely random reader—drifting from book to book as suits my mood. I don’t often plan out a course of reading, though I admire those who do, and I love to see other people’s reading lists (like Danielle’s at A Work in Progress) and summer reading recommendations (click here for some fun ones).

This summer, to make the most of what I hope will be extra reading time (when most people are preparing to get outdoors more in summer, here in central Florida, I’m planning ways to stay indoors as much as I can—it’s just too dang hot and humid), I thought I’d try making up my own reading list in an effort to read more widely and carefully instead of just reading more.

I started my list with books from the pattern that has emerged the past couple of years. For instance, every summer, I read a biography or autobiography of a writer. In past years, I’ve read about Edna St. Vincent Millay, Louisa May Alcott and Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning. This summer, I’ve picked up a volume of L.M. Montgomery’s journals (she’s the author of the Anne of Green Gables series, see below), and I think I might also tackle Mark Twain’s autobiography. 

Interestingly, for the past two summers I’ve read a book by Wilkie Collins (The Moonstone and The Woman in White). This year, it’s No Name, the story of Magdalen and Norah Vanstone, who find themselves orphaned and penniless when their inheritance goes to their uncle.

I also like to pick up a classic. I’m already working on The Three Musketeers (which I started months ago—not a reflection on the story, but on the fact that I’m reading it on my tablet, which I dislike for reading). I’m also considering Eudora Welty’s Delta Wedding, which is described on Amazon as “A vivid and charming portrait of a large southern family, the Fairchilds, who live on a plantation in the Mississippi delta. The story…[is] centered around the visit of a young relative, Laura McRaven, and the family’s preparations for her cousin Dabney’s wedding.” I’m just discovering Welty’s work, and so far I’ve loved everything I’ve read.

I’ll continue with my vintage mystery challenge—with Ngaio Marsh’s Spinsters in Jeopardy—what a great title!—up next.  I’ll probably also sneak in another Georgette Heyer mystery. I’m working my way through the Sourcebooks Landmark editions with their terrific vintage covers.

What would summer be like without a comfort reread (or two…or more!)? I’m thinking of revisiting Mary Stewart’s The Moon-Spinners (especially for the Cretan setting), and Anne’s House of Dreams, the fifth book in Anne of Green Gables series. And I think it’s about time I reread an Agatha Christie mystery. 

And lest you think I’m eternally stuck in the past, I also want to read Barbara Kingsolver’s newest novel Flight Behavior, I’m working on the fourth Maisie Dobbs mystery, Messenger of Truth and I’m already more than halfway through Jenny Lawson’s Let’s Pretend This Never Happened. (Jenny is better known as The Bloggess.) 

My summer list also includes Dave Barry’s I’ll Mature When I’m Dead and Val Frankel’s memoir, It’s Hard Not to Hate You, as well as Debbie Macomber’s Between Friends and Patricia Wentworth’s The Catherine Wheel, another vintage mystery.

Whew. That should more than take me through the summer! And if it doesn’t, I still have quite a mountain of choices on my shelves, despite my efforts to whittle them down. (Tip: in order to effectively reduce one’s total “mountain” of books, one must quit buying books. So much easier said than done.)