Sunday, January 20, 2008

interrogation without much of a point

What would you do if you were lying in someone's guest room, alone and sad, but not crying, because you knew that people who claim that a good cry always makes them feel better are just as big liars as those who claim that a good talk helps clear the air, and you were analyzing the paintings on the walls and reading the titles of the books on the bookshelf, but mostly you were thinking about the fact, incontrovertible, much as you wished it were otherwise, that in the course of what already seemed like a very long life, you had once, ages ago, cupped in your palms a round and golden something that you imagined was almost like what other people meant when they said the word love, but you couldn't remember exactly how it felt no matter how hard you tried?

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

Weep inconsolably...

Katie said...

I don't know but I wish I could find that golden ball again...

christina(apronstrings) said...

i do think a good cry makes you feel better. does it cure grief, no, but it is a huge release.
thalia told me, after m/c 1,001 that i should allow myself a good cry when i felt like it. i did and those crys made all the difference.
(as you know i am in no way comparing m/c 1,001 to any serious grief.)
so, i would cry.

christina(apronstrings) said...

oops. cries.

S said...

i'd call a friend. even a cyberfriend would do. (yep. if you should ever want to, you know where to find me.)

the Babychaser: said...

Oh, honey, my heart is breaking for you. I just don't know what you do. A good cry tends to require xanax to stop and ends up giving me a migraine. And all the other things you can do--journal, talk to someone, rage and scream, exercise--they only work sometimes.

Here's what I know (or at least what I fervently believe). That round and golden something can be yours. Maybe not soon, maybe not the way you wanted it to be, maybe not without a lot of risk and pain. But you won't be empty forever.

- Babychaser

BTW, you're a beautiful writer.

Beruriah said...

I often feel released after a good cry, sometimes better.

As for love, I'm sorry you feel you've forgotten it.

EmmaL said...

Boy do I ever know what you mean. I would probably have to leave actually - I would just want to be somewhere else. That's how I always feel in those situations - like I need to be somewhere other than where I am - I would go drive. That's what I used to do - I had this route, this circle all around the town I grew up in and when I either couldn't cry or couldn't figure out what to do with myself, I would just drive in circles and wait for it to pass.

Amelie said...

Go outside and take a walk, all by myself, in the chilly air. Sometimes crying helps me, sometimes not. But maybe getting outside stirs your memory, or at least gives you a chance to do something. Lying there and trying desperately to remember sounds terrible. I'm sorry.

Anonymous said...

I'd ask to borrow a car and blast music and RAGE at the effing Universe.

and then I would come back and cry all damn night.

thinking of you.
xo

LawMommy said...

Probably, I would curl myself into a ball and rock back and forth whilst sobbing uncontrollably. Or, more truthfully, drink a significant amount of rum.

I'm left wondering who it is you ache for, a man, one of your babies, some other creature...whoever it is that is missing from you, I sincerely hope that you can find some small measure of comfort in the ones who remain.

G

Tash said...

Go in the shower and cry so it all goes down the drain. I think people say crying helps as long as it doesn't inconvenience anyone, and clearing the air helps as long as it's not their air. Thankfully, I have other golden balls I can pull out when the one seems deflated and tarnished. The golden ball I imagined to be *hope* though is another story altogether.

Anonymous said...

Is it the feeling you're mourning or the someone to whom the feeling was attached? In the end I find it easier to mourn a concrete loss than the loss of the person I was who once had the thing/person/whatever that is now gone forever.

No advice, Niobe. But loads of empathy. I agree that good cry doesn't help, but sometimes I can't think of a damn thing to do instead...

c. said...

Okay, Niobe. That just makes me cry.

E. Phantzi said...

"I, who would love, must marvel at the way
I know aloneness when I'm holding it,
Know near and far as words for live and die,
Know distance as I'm trying to draw near
Growing immense and know, but don't know why,
Things seen up close enlarge, then disappear.
Tonight this small room seems to huge to cross
And my life is that looming kind of place.
Here, left with this alone and at a loss,
I hold an alien and vacant face
That shrinks away and yet is magnified
More so than I am able to explain.
Tonight, the giant galaxies outside
Are tiny, tiny on my windowpane."
~ exerpted from "Snow Melting," by Gjertrud Schnackenberg (in The Lamplit Answer)

Rosalind said...

It's heartbreaking

Long walks can help but long cries happen when I hit rock bottom and can pretend no more

Coggy said...

I'd just cry and not want to get as far away as possible.

Maggie said...

I always wonder if a good cry would make me feel better. But I can never seem to do it.

But I can't think of anything else to do instead.

Aunt Becky said...

If it were me, I'd probably spend a good long while feeling excruciatingly sorry for myself, then make fun of myself for being dramatic, and then go shopping for frivolous stuff.

If I were you, however, I'd take a lot of beautiful pictures. And then post them here.

Julia said...

Depends on what time of day it was. If at all socially acceptable, I would down a few fruity drinks and do something completely useless, like watch bad TV. If it was early in the morning, probably lay there more or less frozen.
I am sorry.

Jennifer said...

golden sacred somethings...crap...is that what we're after?
I guess mine got smashed to peices a long time a go.
Am I supposed to want another one?
Not so sure. Sounds good in theory.
I'm pretty sure golden sacred somethings are a major inconvience.

Anonymous said...

Cry for 15 minutes and then read something by Jane Austen.

Emily

Which Box said...

There is not a good cry. Blotchiness is never something that leads to good things.

I have learned to just be sad. Because for me it cycles, and the odds are the next day is usually better.

I don't know if that's the case for you. I hope there are better days interspersed with the bad days.

S. said...

Honestly? I'd go to sleep. Even if it didn't help, at least it wouldn't make my sleep deficit *worse.*

Kami said...

I have been there and waited with great trust that I would feel it again someday. When those moments come I cherish them in a way I never did before.

And I do cry and sometimes it helps.

beagle said...

For me, the good cry is only a vent. It lets some of the pressure escape. But if the source of the pressure still exists then I find myself needing relief again.

So, I don't really have an answer but I appreciate that you've posed the question (and so beautifully).

As for feeling this way while away from home, I would have to make an excuse to get away and be really alone (brisk walk cold air as someone said).