Oct 22, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Holly Huitt, Carmen Radley
Dear friend Suleika, this is unbelievably timely. Unable to sleep, I am up and already walked by darling dog at 3am. I have been sitting here, candles lit having a cry ( which I do daily now since the death of my beloved husband ). Here you are and “Cry” one of my favorites of John’s. No coincidence here. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. So happy for your good bone marrow results. Know that you both are loved and appreciated by an unknown friend here. Thank you dear one.
Oct 22, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Holly Huitt, Carmen Radley
This one really hits home. It seems like we’re all going through the same kind of moment in life right now and there’s a sense of relief that none of us are alone in this sadness. I wrote about how to grieve this week and now reading this feels like a healing balm. Thank you 🤎🙏🏾
Oct 22, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Holly Huitt, Carmen Radley
My mother’s death was both expected and shocking and followed a difficult and complicated life. It also involved a return trip from Chile which was in the throes of a fulminating coup de tat, as it turned out. Coming out of her funeral service, a torrent of tears began falling; I was 23, the oldest sibling, and sobbing. A well-meaning aunt quickly came up beside me and reminded me that I needed to be strong for my sisters and brother, implying or saying, this many years later I don’t remember which, I should stop crying. It was YEARS before I physically cried again for my mom, or anyone or anything else. At this hour, one-finger typing in the dark, this is the memory that comes to mind after reading both essays and comments. 50 years since my mother Nora’s death.
May we keep finding the courage to weep the tears that need / want to be expressed so that we can make space for the possibility of joy rising.
Oct 22, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Holly Huitt, Carmen Radley
I was taught not to cry...to dig my fingernails into my hand to the point of pain, sublimating my tears. And then, three years ago, I finally "broke." Life circumstances closed in on me, I curled into a fetal position and sobbed, "I am broken, I am broken, I want my mother." Only, my mother does not remember who I am. Her dementia has robbed her of so much, and that made me cry more. I cried for myself, for those whose lives were and are so tortured, I cried for the children who do not know where their next meal will will come, for the people forced into refugee status, I cried for the trees, these trees hundreds of years old, cut so a house could be "modernized" for increased cash value, and the list goes on. I have had these tears stuck inside me for so long and I do not hold them back anymore.
Oct 22, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Holly Huitt, Carmen Radley
The first line of the prompt says it all! “We cause ourselves a lot of pain by pretending to be competent, all-knowing, proficient adults long after we should,ideally, have called for help.” That has been my M.O. for my entire life! Strong, independent woman, does it all herself..... but I do cry. Asking for help is another thing. So many different cries there are: the silent weeping you don’t even know you’re crying yet but the sadness just flows out; the pain cry which is more physical (herniated disk, can’t move); the frustration cry when you’re at your wits end (flight delays, exhaustion); and then there’s the sobbing.....that gets ugly and full of snot and deep breaths....it’s so necessary to let go of the immense pain. When my best friend died after all the torture of medical experiments to keep her cancer at bay, her husband called me on my way to work, on a Friday. And I sobbed....and every Friday for awhile , on the way to work I sobbed. It was as if passing that same spot in my drive is where it happened, where I heard she was gone that triggered it. One Friday I waited to cry until Friday night. I ordered a pizza and a cold beer and drove down to the beach, blasted a sad song, stayed in my car and cried, watching the ocean taking my grief away bit by bit in the next wave. Stayed in my car so the public wouldn’t try to help me stop crying. The car can be a private place where you can be loud about crying. The ocean always feels like it’s so vast it can absorb the tears, the forest can too.
Oct 22, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Holly Huitt, Carmen Radley
“When the impulse to cry strikes, we should be grown up enough to cede to it as we did in our fourth or fifth years.”
Yes, Alain, we need this!
I do not cry often, but when I do, as evidenced during The Hatch, I can’t stop it. And though the voices of shame and “what’s wrong with you” peer out from the shadows, the relief and cleansing of tears soothe my 55 year old self and give me permission to breathe again.
Oct 22, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Holly Huitt, Carmen Radley
Dear Suleika,
I wish I could hug you and hold your hand.
I’ve been told by many that I cry more than most people they know. Since I was a child, I’ve felt the sadness and injustice in the world, and crying has always been a release - even though it’s exhausting. I’m nearly 50 now and, like you, I am on the verge of crying all the time. My father passed away two months ago after a long illness, and I don’t understand why I am crying so much for such an imperfect dad. I loved him, but in a complicated way.
Add to my grief the state of our world, and I’m a hot mess. The other day my student wrote a poem about her Israeli grandmother and I wept in front of my class of 14 year old students. May you give yourself permission to cry. So many of us love you and are holding space for you in our hearts. Yours, Maggie
Oct 22, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Holly Huitt, Carmen Radley
This begins with feeling helpless. I walk each day since October 7th, 2023, carrying memories of a magical journey in 2016. I had the amazing opportunity to participate in a Sacred music festival in Palestine. For two weeks we traveled to cities and villages in Palestine. Then, unexpectedly, I was invited to northern Israel to play flutes at a Jewish service, and later, to a kibbutz in southern Israel, to play flutes for children in a kindergarten.
It was a month filled with music, kindness, friendliness, and nourishing support.
Then October 7th. The living horror of that day was a rising to the surface of pain and despair that had been brewing for years. More than anything this is my sadness, my fear, and the source of my tears: the unfortunate denial on many of our parts to recognize and acknowledge the humanity of each other.
I do feel like a child who has been protected and nourished by the kindness of others. And, now, I cannot grasp the hands of so many kind people. Like a child, I only wish for friendship, for people to be kind to each other. I have no interest in religious, historical, or political “reasons and excuses” for harming each other. Yes, there are many “valid” reasons for pain, anger, and desperation. This is where my tears begin to fall. We refuse to be vulnerable, to recognize each other as our neighbors, brothers and sisters, family. We refuse to connect with each other and share our sadness, and our dreams. We refuse to honor each other’s full humanity.
Today, I carry my sadness as a lantern in all this darkness, letting my sadness be a light and beacon, a wish, a dream where we, including myself, realize that we can be vulnerable together, to cry together, to feel helpless together, to be tender and caring with each other. I am just as afraid of intimacy as anyone, at times aware of the risks of feeling vulnerable, and yet, what else can we do? Beat our chests and clang our swords? Where children play, adults will often harm each other.
Oct 22, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Holly Huitt, Carmen Radley
Beautiful (and so timely) post, thank you Suleika. I have never had a choice with tears, even though I have tried. Like creating, they have a mind of their own, and have kind of submerged me recently. Permission to cry always granted.💚
Oct 22, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Holly Huitt, Carmen Radley
Oh, Suleika. Yes, yes, yes to all of this. I’ve been feeling so sad all week for a multitude of reasons, most of which are also due to the immense pain going on in our world right now. To top it off, I have been on anti-depressants for years which make me flat at times and it’s difficult for me to cry. I appreciate your shares and love so much. We are so lucky to have you and I couldn’t be happier that your transplant is holding strong. We love you, girl.
Oct 22, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Holly Huitt, Carmen Radley
This has given me thoughts I never had before, thinking about why I cry. I have concluded that for me tears come from a sense of helplessness. When I was sick from chemotherapy I cried, because the suffering felt endless, and I was helpless to make myself feel better. I cry when I watch a program that shows animals hurting, because I’m helpless to prevent it, and I can’t stand to see animals suffer. I cried very recently when I watched a TV news show that profiled a young man who was killed in the awful events in the mid-east. I was overcome with helplessness that these killings continue, that this person’s loved ones, a mother and father, a wife and children, were experiencing the worst kind of grief, that I will never see a time in my life when these awful events cease.
I sometimes feel embarrassed when my tears come. Why are we so conditioned to suppress our sadness, to be outwardly stoic and strong? There is so much sorrow in the world that we’re helpless to prevent.
I try to make my little portion of the world a better place and keep hoping that goodness will someday prevail, that we will all have fewer reasons to cry.
Oct 22, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Holly Huitt, Carmen Radley
Honestly sometimes when I read the weekly prompts I think - have they been watching me this week?! Once again a topic that resonates so closely to something I have been going through this week, a week in which I have shed many tears.
I used to talk to myself so unkindly when I cried. Weak is definitely a word I have used.
I now know that just because I’m crying it doesn’t mean I am not strong or resilient. Sometimes it is because I am those things. Sometimes it is hard being so stoic and making sure everyone else is okay before myself. Sometimes I just need to let it out.
As my wise therapist told me once “it’s okay to cry. You need to get the emotions out as your hope is buried beneath it all.”
I’m going to cry when I need to cry. Even though I still have feelings of shame sometimes when it happens, it doesn’t last long when it does pop up because I know the power of a good cry. ♥️
Oct 22, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Holly Huitt, Carmen Radley
“You’re a tear waiting to drop.” My husband told me that. A while ago. And it’s as true now as it was then. I cry too easily and to the amusement of my family. But it’s not amusing to me, it’s embarrassing. It doesn’t help that I’m an ugly cryer too. My eyes swell. My nose swells. I get red blotches on my face and neck. Sometimes it can take hours for the swelling to subside.
It doesn’t take much to emotionally overwhelm me. Some things that make me cry, in no specific order: all intentionally manipulative tear-jerking movies and commercials; other people crying, especially the near and dear to me; the sound of a siren (because I’m moved by the thought of people racing to help other people); people being duly honoured (I’m a goner if there’s a standing ovation); a live symphony (throw in a standing o at the end of that and lord help me); people in distress; the news; chopping onions… I could go on. I’m sure it’s some kind of disorder. Good thing I don’t curl up in a ball too, I’d be rolling down the streets and aisles. Always have tissues on hand - that’s my motto. I’m the town cryer.
Oct 22, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Holly Huitt, Carmen Radley
I have found - upon a foundation of trauma - that I am actually afraid of crying. I find breathing hard these days. Just breathing. The very act of living at its most basic. And crying makes breathing harder. I cannot afford to make breathing any harder.
Oct 22, 2023·edited Oct 22, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Holly Huitt, Carmen Radley
The Place of Tears isn't always immediately accessible for me, not because it makes me feel lesser or because I have any kind of block, it's more like a parallel to creativity. I write when a door opens, when everything is "aligned" inside and out. Likewise, the door needs to open for those tears. When my mother died after many years of illness, I had a deep well of tears. With my spouse and the kids gone at a movie, I picked a song about loss that had always moved me: "Empty Chairs and Empty Tables" from Les Mis, and boom! I was right there for quite a while.
My tears are as varied as my crying. These last two weeks. In Jerusalem. Distraught.Tears of helplessness. Crying in outrage. Tears for the unnecessary losses, of lives, limbs, of fellow BEings. Strangers, who might have BEcome friends. Neighbors. Colleagues.
Rangng in diversities.My tears flow. When, and as, they choose to. They exist as I do. Amidst realities' ever-present dimensions: uncertainties. Unpredictabilities. Unexpected outcomes. Randomness. The toxic myth of total control..."try hard enough" The childhood tale of the choo-choo: "I think I can, I think I can..." Which all-too-easily misleads. The challenge is to "risk" failing. Each fall an opportunity for betterment.
Crying, for, about, over, with, etc. is not a marker of weakness. Vulnerability. It is a gift,metaphorically,
signifying life. Sensitivity. Caring. One's own, and that of the "other." It is part of the DNA of necessary menschlichkeit for US ALL. Sharing human diversities as well as commonalities. More tears will flow today. As I wait, as so many others do,where I am, for new losses to evolve. In borderless Rrealities. Organs to be maimed. Families and communities to BEcome ravished. Temporarilly as well as more permanently. For "traumas" to be created and experienced; not a concept residing in a dictionary.
Tears, and their flow, can, will, and must visit when, and as, needed.
S/he/THEY are welcome in my home. May your tears be of joy. The opportunities to celebrate the gifts associated with daily life. The opportunities to engage in, and to contribute to, making a needed difference that makes a sustainable difference in the quality of life for US ALL.
Dear friend Suleika, this is unbelievably timely. Unable to sleep, I am up and already walked by darling dog at 3am. I have been sitting here, candles lit having a cry ( which I do daily now since the death of my beloved husband ). Here you are and “Cry” one of my favorites of John’s. No coincidence here. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. So happy for your good bone marrow results. Know that you both are loved and appreciated by an unknown friend here. Thank you dear one.
Patti Redick
This one really hits home. It seems like we’re all going through the same kind of moment in life right now and there’s a sense of relief that none of us are alone in this sadness. I wrote about how to grieve this week and now reading this feels like a healing balm. Thank you 🤎🙏🏾
My mother’s death was both expected and shocking and followed a difficult and complicated life. It also involved a return trip from Chile which was in the throes of a fulminating coup de tat, as it turned out. Coming out of her funeral service, a torrent of tears began falling; I was 23, the oldest sibling, and sobbing. A well-meaning aunt quickly came up beside me and reminded me that I needed to be strong for my sisters and brother, implying or saying, this many years later I don’t remember which, I should stop crying. It was YEARS before I physically cried again for my mom, or anyone or anything else. At this hour, one-finger typing in the dark, this is the memory that comes to mind after reading both essays and comments. 50 years since my mother Nora’s death.
May we keep finding the courage to weep the tears that need / want to be expressed so that we can make space for the possibility of joy rising.
I was taught not to cry...to dig my fingernails into my hand to the point of pain, sublimating my tears. And then, three years ago, I finally "broke." Life circumstances closed in on me, I curled into a fetal position and sobbed, "I am broken, I am broken, I want my mother." Only, my mother does not remember who I am. Her dementia has robbed her of so much, and that made me cry more. I cried for myself, for those whose lives were and are so tortured, I cried for the children who do not know where their next meal will will come, for the people forced into refugee status, I cried for the trees, these trees hundreds of years old, cut so a house could be "modernized" for increased cash value, and the list goes on. I have had these tears stuck inside me for so long and I do not hold them back anymore.
The first line of the prompt says it all! “We cause ourselves a lot of pain by pretending to be competent, all-knowing, proficient adults long after we should,ideally, have called for help.” That has been my M.O. for my entire life! Strong, independent woman, does it all herself..... but I do cry. Asking for help is another thing. So many different cries there are: the silent weeping you don’t even know you’re crying yet but the sadness just flows out; the pain cry which is more physical (herniated disk, can’t move); the frustration cry when you’re at your wits end (flight delays, exhaustion); and then there’s the sobbing.....that gets ugly and full of snot and deep breaths....it’s so necessary to let go of the immense pain. When my best friend died after all the torture of medical experiments to keep her cancer at bay, her husband called me on my way to work, on a Friday. And I sobbed....and every Friday for awhile , on the way to work I sobbed. It was as if passing that same spot in my drive is where it happened, where I heard she was gone that triggered it. One Friday I waited to cry until Friday night. I ordered a pizza and a cold beer and drove down to the beach, blasted a sad song, stayed in my car and cried, watching the ocean taking my grief away bit by bit in the next wave. Stayed in my car so the public wouldn’t try to help me stop crying. The car can be a private place where you can be loud about crying. The ocean always feels like it’s so vast it can absorb the tears, the forest can too.
“When the impulse to cry strikes, we should be grown up enough to cede to it as we did in our fourth or fifth years.”
Yes, Alain, we need this!
I do not cry often, but when I do, as evidenced during The Hatch, I can’t stop it. And though the voices of shame and “what’s wrong with you” peer out from the shadows, the relief and cleansing of tears soothe my 55 year old self and give me permission to breathe again.
Dear Suleika,
I wish I could hug you and hold your hand.
I’ve been told by many that I cry more than most people they know. Since I was a child, I’ve felt the sadness and injustice in the world, and crying has always been a release - even though it’s exhausting. I’m nearly 50 now and, like you, I am on the verge of crying all the time. My father passed away two months ago after a long illness, and I don’t understand why I am crying so much for such an imperfect dad. I loved him, but in a complicated way.
Add to my grief the state of our world, and I’m a hot mess. The other day my student wrote a poem about her Israeli grandmother and I wept in front of my class of 14 year old students. May you give yourself permission to cry. So many of us love you and are holding space for you in our hearts. Yours, Maggie
This begins with feeling helpless. I walk each day since October 7th, 2023, carrying memories of a magical journey in 2016. I had the amazing opportunity to participate in a Sacred music festival in Palestine. For two weeks we traveled to cities and villages in Palestine. Then, unexpectedly, I was invited to northern Israel to play flutes at a Jewish service, and later, to a kibbutz in southern Israel, to play flutes for children in a kindergarten.
It was a month filled with music, kindness, friendliness, and nourishing support.
Then October 7th. The living horror of that day was a rising to the surface of pain and despair that had been brewing for years. More than anything this is my sadness, my fear, and the source of my tears: the unfortunate denial on many of our parts to recognize and acknowledge the humanity of each other.
I do feel like a child who has been protected and nourished by the kindness of others. And, now, I cannot grasp the hands of so many kind people. Like a child, I only wish for friendship, for people to be kind to each other. I have no interest in religious, historical, or political “reasons and excuses” for harming each other. Yes, there are many “valid” reasons for pain, anger, and desperation. This is where my tears begin to fall. We refuse to be vulnerable, to recognize each other as our neighbors, brothers and sisters, family. We refuse to connect with each other and share our sadness, and our dreams. We refuse to honor each other’s full humanity.
Today, I carry my sadness as a lantern in all this darkness, letting my sadness be a light and beacon, a wish, a dream where we, including myself, realize that we can be vulnerable together, to cry together, to feel helpless together, to be tender and caring with each other. I am just as afraid of intimacy as anyone, at times aware of the risks of feeling vulnerable, and yet, what else can we do? Beat our chests and clang our swords? Where children play, adults will often harm each other.
A poem from Ryokan:
“As I watch the children play,
Without realizing it,
My eyes fill with tears.”🏮
Beautiful (and so timely) post, thank you Suleika. I have never had a choice with tears, even though I have tried. Like creating, they have a mind of their own, and have kind of submerged me recently. Permission to cry always granted.💚
Oh, Suleika. Yes, yes, yes to all of this. I’ve been feeling so sad all week for a multitude of reasons, most of which are also due to the immense pain going on in our world right now. To top it off, I have been on anti-depressants for years which make me flat at times and it’s difficult for me to cry. I appreciate your shares and love so much. We are so lucky to have you and I couldn’t be happier that your transplant is holding strong. We love you, girl.
This has given me thoughts I never had before, thinking about why I cry. I have concluded that for me tears come from a sense of helplessness. When I was sick from chemotherapy I cried, because the suffering felt endless, and I was helpless to make myself feel better. I cry when I watch a program that shows animals hurting, because I’m helpless to prevent it, and I can’t stand to see animals suffer. I cried very recently when I watched a TV news show that profiled a young man who was killed in the awful events in the mid-east. I was overcome with helplessness that these killings continue, that this person’s loved ones, a mother and father, a wife and children, were experiencing the worst kind of grief, that I will never see a time in my life when these awful events cease.
I sometimes feel embarrassed when my tears come. Why are we so conditioned to suppress our sadness, to be outwardly stoic and strong? There is so much sorrow in the world that we’re helpless to prevent.
I try to make my little portion of the world a better place and keep hoping that goodness will someday prevail, that we will all have fewer reasons to cry.
Honestly sometimes when I read the weekly prompts I think - have they been watching me this week?! Once again a topic that resonates so closely to something I have been going through this week, a week in which I have shed many tears.
I used to talk to myself so unkindly when I cried. Weak is definitely a word I have used.
I now know that just because I’m crying it doesn’t mean I am not strong or resilient. Sometimes it is because I am those things. Sometimes it is hard being so stoic and making sure everyone else is okay before myself. Sometimes I just need to let it out.
As my wise therapist told me once “it’s okay to cry. You need to get the emotions out as your hope is buried beneath it all.”
I’m going to cry when I need to cry. Even though I still have feelings of shame sometimes when it happens, it doesn’t last long when it does pop up because I know the power of a good cry. ♥️
“You’re a tear waiting to drop.” My husband told me that. A while ago. And it’s as true now as it was then. I cry too easily and to the amusement of my family. But it’s not amusing to me, it’s embarrassing. It doesn’t help that I’m an ugly cryer too. My eyes swell. My nose swells. I get red blotches on my face and neck. Sometimes it can take hours for the swelling to subside.
It doesn’t take much to emotionally overwhelm me. Some things that make me cry, in no specific order: all intentionally manipulative tear-jerking movies and commercials; other people crying, especially the near and dear to me; the sound of a siren (because I’m moved by the thought of people racing to help other people); people being duly honoured (I’m a goner if there’s a standing ovation); a live symphony (throw in a standing o at the end of that and lord help me); people in distress; the news; chopping onions… I could go on. I’m sure it’s some kind of disorder. Good thing I don’t curl up in a ball too, I’d be rolling down the streets and aisles. Always have tissues on hand - that’s my motto. I’m the town cryer.
I have found - upon a foundation of trauma - that I am actually afraid of crying. I find breathing hard these days. Just breathing. The very act of living at its most basic. And crying makes breathing harder. I cannot afford to make breathing any harder.
The Place of Tears isn't always immediately accessible for me, not because it makes me feel lesser or because I have any kind of block, it's more like a parallel to creativity. I write when a door opens, when everything is "aligned" inside and out. Likewise, the door needs to open for those tears. When my mother died after many years of illness, I had a deep well of tears. With my spouse and the kids gone at a movie, I picked a song about loss that had always moved me: "Empty Chairs and Empty Tables" from Les Mis, and boom! I was right there for quite a while.
My tears are as varied as my crying. These last two weeks. In Jerusalem. Distraught.Tears of helplessness. Crying in outrage. Tears for the unnecessary losses, of lives, limbs, of fellow BEings. Strangers, who might have BEcome friends. Neighbors. Colleagues.
Rangng in diversities.My tears flow. When, and as, they choose to. They exist as I do. Amidst realities' ever-present dimensions: uncertainties. Unpredictabilities. Unexpected outcomes. Randomness. The toxic myth of total control..."try hard enough" The childhood tale of the choo-choo: "I think I can, I think I can..." Which all-too-easily misleads. The challenge is to "risk" failing. Each fall an opportunity for betterment.
Crying, for, about, over, with, etc. is not a marker of weakness. Vulnerability. It is a gift,metaphorically,
signifying life. Sensitivity. Caring. One's own, and that of the "other." It is part of the DNA of necessary menschlichkeit for US ALL. Sharing human diversities as well as commonalities. More tears will flow today. As I wait, as so many others do,where I am, for new losses to evolve. In borderless Rrealities. Organs to be maimed. Families and communities to BEcome ravished. Temporarilly as well as more permanently. For "traumas" to be created and experienced; not a concept residing in a dictionary.
Tears, and their flow, can, will, and must visit when, and as, needed.
S/he/THEY are welcome in my home. May your tears be of joy. The opportunities to celebrate the gifts associated with daily life. The opportunities to engage in, and to contribute to, making a needed difference that makes a sustainable difference in the quality of life for US ALL.
shlomo einstein Jerusalem