Not Afraid to Cry

I am not a person who cries all that easily.

Well, OK, not counting almost all of 2002, during which I cried for at least a portion of nearly every day, in-between sadness and regret and numbness and just plain feeling bad for everything that I had done. Yeah, that year, I cried easily.

And I do not mind crying, except for the fact that when you cry and people are around, seems like they always want to know, “What’s wrong?” ... when in reality, sometimes there actually really is nothing “wrong,” it is simply that something got to you, in some way, and given the subconscious (or is it unconscious? I never really totally understood the difference between those 2 words) choice between the two reactions that (to me, anyway) seem most “normal,” laughing and crying:

You cried.

I watched a movie tonight called Lea, and in certain parts, it made me cry. For example, when Strehloh hands Lea the wild roses, and she struggles so mightily to say, “Dank,” because she does not speak, really ... it is simply heartbreaking.

Earlier today, though, I was doing a little photo editing, and I called up a picture that had been sent to me earlier this week by our freelancer from a trip to Haiti by her son and daughter-in-law. I had not looked at the photo prior to today, and then, there it was, on my screen, and all I could do was cry.

And I thought about posting it in here, but I did not shoot the photo, and although I doubt the photographer would mind, I made a rule whilst writing “Freewheelin’ Di” that I was not going to post photos by others from elsewhere on the Internet. I could always link to them, I reasoned ... and besides, this is MY place. MY lil’ corner of the Web. So only photos BY me ... or, on the rare occasion that I might want to post a photograph OF me, or something me-related ... or, maybe an occasional photo from the archives, say, a family member when she or he was younger, perhaps before I was even a glint ...

After all, it really IS all about me ... right?

Right.

So I will describe the photograph that still, right now, as I look at it, fills my eyes with tears and makes me want to embrace, totally, all that there is in this life, beyond the ME-ness that I can sometimes submerge myself in. (And suddenly, I wish this were Friday because at this moment, I feel as if I could write and write and write forever.)

The photo:

Gray walls with a brown wooden doorframe in the middle ... a brown door opens from the left ... beyond the door, wispy white material (part of a hammock, perhaps?), and beyond that, an off-white beam, and past that, palms and other green foliage ... in front of the wispy material, low, a white fan (the blades are not moving) ... standing in the doorway, a woman about my age, maybe a little younger, with an oval face, fair complexion, smiling so her teeth, even and white, are showing, strong cheekbones, three smile lines along each side of her face, greenish eyes that shine and look straight ahead ... she has light brown hair, pulled back, and a ringlet of blonde curls falls along the right side of her face ... she is wearing small silver hoop earrings and a thin silver or white gold necklace, and a white T-shirt ... her arms, slender and tan, are crossed, with the fingers of her left hand near her right elbow ... her right arm angles upward, her hand cradling the head of a baby girl, her right thumb slightly covering the baby’s left ear ... the baby has darker skin and light, small patches of brown hair on her head ... her dark brown eyes look to the left, and her tiny hands are balled into fists, the left one tighter than the right, both near her face, the left fist right in front of her slightly downturned lips ... her knees are bent and her legs are as thin as her thin arms, which also are bent ... the baby is wearing a white onesie, and her pink-soled feet rest in the bend of the woman’s right arm ... the woman holds the heel of the baby’s left foot in the tips of her thumb, index and middle fingers.

What is missing from this description is the fact that the baby is 6 months old and weighs not much more than a newborn, so her arms and legs look too long for her body, and I can see that she is malnourished. Yet her eyes are bright, and with her fists clenched like they are, I get the feeling that she will, indeed, be a fighter.

And that makes me cry and gives me hope.