laughing while crying

I love my laundry mat. I come here because it's clean, it smells good and I can have all my laundry done - washed and dried - in forty minutes. It's locally owned and the owner loves to come over and show you how to work his new machines. He walks you through the whole process; where to put your money, how to set the dials, how to read the display, where to put detergent, how much detergent, etc. He loves to explain how his machines are superior to other machines and how much more efficient they are than other machines. "Next generation" is his favorite phrase and he says it a lot.

I could easily do laundry in my building but I take the experience for granted when I do. When I do it at the Perch, I just put the laundry in and come back to pad and do other things. When I go to the laundry mat, I am forced to focus on what I'm doing and to not take if for granted or get distracted. It's a simple lesson that I feel I need to work on more. So twice a week, I come to the Next Generation Laundry Mat and I pay attention.

It's a new place so most people haven't discovered it yet. Those who have are the standard fare for your modern laundry mat. Mostly lower income, mostly questionable characters that use trash bags for their laundry. Usually these people keep to themselves until they have a problem with a machine and they have to seek out help, but otherwise they just sit and watch free TV or sink quarters into the claw machine hoping to get a new toy for baby Festus.

I like to read and listen to Miles Davis while doing laundry. If I don't have a great book, I will watch the machine toss my clothes around. It's a dangerous thing to sit and watch laundry mix around. I have found myself trying to see if I can catch the exact moment when the dirt leaves my clothes. I never catch it, but I try every time.

Not too many loads ago, a small destitute child came up and asked me if I ever cried. I was shocked that he asked, not because I was a stranger and he was a kid, but because it was such an odd question for a dirty little child to ask a complete stranger. It was like he was asking to be abducted. I guess for some children abduction is a better option. Don't believe me, ask Andrea Yates' kids.

"Hey. What makes you cry?" asks the 6 year old boy with dirt on his face.

I said, in my condescending adult voice, "When things make me sad or if I'm really happy."

I knew when I said it that I shouldn't have.

"You cry when you're happy?" asked the 6 year old boy with dirt on his perplexed face.

I said, in my what-will-it-take-to-get-this-kid-to-go-away voice, "Sure, like when I laugh."

I knew when I said it that I shouldn't have.

"What makes you laugh?" asked the 6 year old boy that looked like he needed a meal and a book.

I said, in my will-money-make-you-go-away-voice, "Will money make you go away?"

Thankfully my laundry stopped spinning and I was able to gather it up and get out of there before the kid pulled a knife or took a bite out of my thigh. It wasn't until I got home and actually thought about the line of questioning that it occurred to me how important that moment had been and how bad it was that I blew it off.

What makes you cry?

I found that crying is a pretty valuable way for me to express myself when other ways leave me wanting more. And the first thing I found out is that there are so many different ways to cry.

Misting - The most common form of crying with men and ironically the rarest form in women. Misting occurs in powerfully emotionally moments that are built up so you have time to prepare yourself to hold back when it crescendos. You get misty, but you can blame dust or a bad contact... No harm there. Laughter makes you misty.

Single tear sans sniffle - As a dam finds it difficult to hold back an angry river during flood season, and will periodically let out a little pressure to keep itself together, so too does a single tear find it's way down your cheek from time to time. Moments in life that are passionate, romantic, overtly sad, powerful painful - and the moment calls for keeping it together - the single tear is found. Casually wiped away with the side of your hand. Getting punched or smacked to hard can make a tear squeeze out that you weren't expecting.

Single tear with sniffle - It's too much to hold back and perhaps there was no warning. Perhaps it was a memory recall of a past emotional moment, but the tear falls unchecked and a strange heat in your nose has made a snot tear drop to keep it company. You'll need tissue or you'll muck up your hand. Disappointing a parent or friend can bring about a single tear, sniffle combo.

Reserved sobbing - You've just had a pretty hard spanking. Gotten in a fight. You've have just survived a harrowing experience. You were suddenly thrust into a life or death experience and made it out unscathed. You're shaken, but you want to keep it together... So you muffle the sobbing and turn away so no one can see.

Sobbing - There is no control. There is no hope. The overwhelming sense of injustice, unfairness, of pure evil, of immeasurable sadness, heart break, loss, defeat, pending doom, fear... It's loud, it's full of tears that have no end, the nose runs, the eyes puff shut as if to say they have seen too much and they can't take any more. In these moments all things are possible. There is no self respect, no self esteem and no desire to see another minute. Life, as you know it, is over.

Staring - Beyond the sobbing is a place where the body is as still as a rock. It is crying but it had no more tears and no more noises left inside it. The mind is blank. Soulless. Only robots feel this way.

I have seen all of these forms of tears in my life. People have died, people have tricked me, people have hurt me, I have hurt myself, I have experienced powerful things. My tears have cleansed me when I needed things to be washed away. My tears have lubricated the moments of my life that seem rigid and stuck, and they have made it possible for me to get by. Tears are as important to the body as laughter. They should be as common as a burp or a giggle in your everyday life.

Some think that crying is a bad thing and that it should be somehow stopped. There is no cure for crying and even the pacification of a hug only increases the intensity of the crying, so we should really try to rethink our attitude towards it.

What makes me cry? What doesn't make me cry?

A view. A loss. A gain. An understanding. An appreciation. Art. The smell of peanut butter and black raspberry jelly sandwiches... they bring me back to my childhood. I cry everytime.