the empath elephant in the room

in your eyes

If I sit on the kitchen floor in the morning I will cry for an hour.

No reason really. I’m a morning person. An astutely productive jump out of bed at 4am and get focused morning person. A laundry starting, sharp mind, story writing, floor sweeping, list making morning person.

But if I sit on the floor, I will cry. Sob even, for an hour. Feels cathartic and like the tears aren’t mine.

In 2015 after my mom died I started finding dimes all over the place. Who uses dimes anymore? No one. But there they were, in her shoes and in endless piles of smart casual Chico’s pants I hauled to the Hospice thrift store. On the floorboard of my car. On the sidewalk near the alligator lake I walked my German Shepherd as a child. Dimes. I had to Google it and there it was, like a Witchapedia, dimes are messages from deceased loved ones. We’re still here with you.

I wondered if Google would have similar insights to my floor crying. Eight years has not improved Google searches and mostly I got ads for ceramic tiles and flooring that devolved into lists of diseases where crying was a symptom. (Sponsored by Pfizer)

I did find reddit threads with lots of people asking the same thing…mostly about crying on the floor of the shower, but that’s a different thing. That’s a privacy issue mostly and tears of the depressive sort. I know of shower tears. Also I know of grief tears which sneak up on you like living a tiger. Sometimes I’d have to prop my arm on the wall and just hang my head for 30 seconds during dinner service. Chef Tears must be quick.

Car crying, oof. I remember making playlists and mix tapes with such care before. Now I’ll drive literal weeks in silence and cry all the way from Alabama to Arkansas. Where to contemplate lives lived (or lives not lived) and music is so powerful I think it’s almost too much for an automobile. With any number of classic jazz tunes A Blossom Fell, or some 70s memory Just the Way You Are or more recently pretty much anything from Natalia LaFourcade. Long, solo, beautiful drives through Mexico listening to Tonada de Luna Llena hit hard. Maybe I’m just a sap. Maybe I need to be medicated. Maybe the muses find a million different ways to crack open our hearts. My mom used to cry to Ave Maria at the first B flat major note. Of course now, I do the same. When I was very small, maybe 4, I used to tell my mom and sister, 14 years my senior, to “Go ahead and fry…” they had a terse relationship at best. Even then my instincts knew, better out than in. I hadn’t anticipated being such a Llorana, but to be honest, I’m glad I still have emotions. Once you stop chasing dopamine, you start to wonder.

The unprovoked floor crying didn’t just start here in Mexico, but clearly I have many obvious reasons to cry. You survived the crash tears, my two dogs are found tears, you’re stranded tears, walk for an hour on secluded empty beaches with dozens of happy but starved orphan dogs that I know I’ll not be able to leave easily tears, being alone in a remote place as the only foreigner tears, no one sells real butter tears, there’s no pizza tears and other less serious offenses and frustrations. Wanting to go home. Not sure where that is.

Before I arrived here I had a pretty long decade of internal investigation. A budding meditation practice, life in the woods eating wild herbs, spiritual journeying, good old fashioned dark nights of the soul, walking away from houses, friendships, comforting habits like Wine Time and shallow sex to fill voids in my heart from lost loves. Epiphanies followed by another hill to climb.

I’ve left a lot behind and I guess there’s a few decades of backed up water in the septic tank that needs to flush out. And what better place to do it really than here…dumped without a car in dusty desert Mexico. The more pared down I get, the more empathic I get and even though I spend no time with people and only make small talk at the tiendas where I buy dog food or carne asada tacos or Nescafe, I may be picking up emotional vibes elsewhere. Like a human composter alchemizing pains out in the ethers and turning it out into the stars. Or I’m just sad beyond return

It’s been easy for me to forget my connections to spirit and trees and all my woo woo fun time tarot and toys. This is not the town where I’ll be stocking up on Copal incense or stringing marigolds for a Day of the Dead ceremony. There are no trees and the shaman have all gotten better gigs south of here in Oaxaca. I barely have a desk to type this I’m not in a mood to rebuild my altar and get my crystals out of the bag. But if not here where? If I’ve ever needed to connect to my inner what the fuck ever with a candle and an amethyst it is here. Now. Maybe that’s who’s crying. Manifest another van and let’s get outta here she says. It’s not about the candles!

I’ve never been this untethered. I don’t even have an address. Not in the US and even in this town where there is no delivery or transit, there are no addresses here either. People just say la casa verde or la casa de gringa con los perros. There are no license plates on the cars. I’m still not fully convinced that any of this, including me, exists. I must have asked the guy who pulled me out of the car ten times. Am I here? Do you see me?

Si, senora.

So I guess I’ll just go ahead and fry these tears from nowhere, eyes heavy with salt from the Sea and my own, and not feel the need to explain to anyone. Let’s see what happens next.

++++++++

All my instincts, they return. And the grand facade, so soon will burn. Without a noise, without my pride. I reach out from the inside.

-Peter Gabriel

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Thanks for reading. For more info on the rescue linktr.ee/lolasdogrescue