D r i p p p p p i n g .

Today I am dripping for good—in behalf of good.

Last time I dripped for injustice and misromancing and all sorts of hurts, but this is different.

This is Spring at her finest, baptizing the earth with her sorrow. It’s not just rain, yet it’s very mildly hail—perfect for soaking the grass, the street, my hair. I play they listening ear and let her cry onto my shoulders, though I’ve never quite understood the need for shoulders in sadness. Your head is already pushing out all the emotion anyway—it should be feeling lighter and lighter all the time; however they almost always sag. And if shoulders are good for anything, they are good for staying square and supporting things that are feeling circular. And when circles themselves finally bottom out we have tears. Tears for washing away grime and accidents and weariness and death.

[Harder tears—hail—could be like exfoliating. Man, I love exfoliating.]

And once it all begins to fall you know you’re finally allowing yourself to be cleansed. To get all the yuck from the inside, out. There is nothing so immediately healing as a cry, except maybe a sleep. Then why do I fear tears and not zzz’s? (I don’t even snore, so why did I put that? What do zzz’s have to do with anything if you don’t snore?) Ahem. Then why do I fear tears and not naps?

Perhaps if I were a witch doctor I would cry people instead of bleeding them. It would hurt just as bad, in some cases, but I’m sure that the effects would be much more therapeutic. I would employ my apprentices to sit and hold drooping heads with their square shoulders; they would be forbidden to ask about “the matter”, but would merely sit and hold and be that one person who cares without requiring any explanation—without any words at all—and makes the whole world right; there would be no problems for fixing, merely the crier and the holder and the liberated tears. That’s healing.

I begin at a run, but the wind overpowers me and DK’sJungleMarioKartspikeballs of a hailstorm pellet that maybe I should just go back where I belong. Reprimands. So I slow to a walk and soak myself in it, taunting them and enjoying the seconds in a self-inflicted, who cares about anything, 7 years-old and invincible sort of way. For a while now I've prayed to understand crying and to embrace the fact that I cry. Today I know, even the earth cries. And today it's not scary at all, it's meaningful. At the end of the street someone has left the sprinklers on and the wind blows them at me all the way around the corner, angrily.

We are unburdening ourselves, relieved and optimistically new, this earth and I.

I count seconds between lights and applause—a mere mile away. I even think to myself for a brief second: wouldn’t it be romantic if I were struck by lightening?

I take the sprinklers at a run, the second time around. They (and the wind) are surprised by my agility and hold back their onslaught just slightly.

As a last tribute to Mother Earth I approach the back yard and strike a tree pose, fingertips needled at the sky, right leg bent.

It just seemed appropriate.