Tortured by Joy*

Iced coffee gets me high. Every frickin time it's this hot I get Vicodin and ice coffee memories, la de dah. Right now the heat and wind downtown + ice coffee = perfect accompaniment to my general too-much-ness of late. Too much joy, too much beer, too much thinking and crying and writing manifestos to myself; I get a song stuck in my head, sing it quietly, and then cry a bit. Here I could insert a selfsnarking comment about looking crazy on the street, but that would be inauthentic and disingenuous. I don't think I look crazy on the street. First of all, I don't think anyone is looking. Secondly, if anyone were looking, I choose to believe they would say to themselves, maybe the two- or four-legged friend they are walking with: "Look at Weepy McJoyfulson over there. Nice dress."

A couple of things are going on with the crying, I think. The process that started this winter on the Mountain went underground for a bit, and now, with the change of seasons I'm getting all jacked up again--every time I put my foot down or inhale I'm thinking and feeling things that have an unfamiliar depth to them, and then I can't breathe deeply enough and I cry a little bit, maybe laugh.

I cried at a play a couple of weeks ago. The Soil Cradling, Temporarily** featured Brownie, soil depicted as a big Muppet looking thing with a gravelly Muppet voice, and Sprout, the spunky little seed scared of her inevitable sprouting. Initially, upon finding myself all moved and crying, I figured it was the nurturance factor: depictions of proper parenting get me like, um, a hamburger under glass might affect starving people. So I thought I was crying for little bitty me, and then my mother and I, moving out to her mother and her, my beautiful client/kids, eventually spreading to all the moms and all the kids ever.

In the weeks since, however, I'm feeling like the mourning for my mom is lessening, and that my reaction to that play--the fact I keep thinking about it, beyond my love of Muppets--is that as a person who effectively raised herself, I get to be both Brownie and Sprout, I get to send the bright and shiny version of myself that I fostered to go out into the world, the whole time worried that she'll get hurt or embarrassed; but it's inevitable; it's already happening. Sprout is talking about how she doesn't want to go, won't go, even as she walks offstage. The inevitability of my healing, the answer to question of what is going to happen to me--that I'll be fine--closes the door to a room I know really well and forces me outside, where there are more people and louder noises and more questions. There are also cicadas, Muppets, strong winds, and novelty gifts. It should be noted that everyone I truly love already thought I knew this, already knows I'm okay, but it took me a bit longer to catch on. It took me 30 years, point of fact. God willing I get 30 more and I wonder what else I'll learn. Maybe some science? Maybe this math I've been hearing the kids talk about.

*Tortured by Joy is a short film I love directed by Henry Griffin and featured on the The Believer's Dec '04/Jan '05 DVD.

**Written by Marika Mashburn. Directed by Chris Mathews. Featuring Jake Minton as Brownie, Dixie Uffelman as Sprout. As part of Bring May Flowers. What did I do with that seed they gave me? Fuck.

***Also, Kerry James Marshall is not dead, I just miss seeing new paintings.