What Makes You Cry?

There’s a wonderful scene in Broadcast News in which Jane Craig, played by Holly Hunter, unplugs the phone in her hotel room, sits down on the bed, and starts weeping and wailing. She cries passionately for several minutes before pulling herself together and confidently going about her business. Later, one realizes that crying is part of the character’s daily routine. I love the scene, not only because Hunter makes crying funny, but because it shows crying in all its cathartic and narcissistic glory, crying as ritual and refresher, crying as a near-religious experience.

My son came home recently talking about a birthday party for a girl named Ruby, to which he hadn’t been invited. “At first I was sad, but now I’m so glad I didn’t get invited,” he said.

“Why are you glad?”

“It was a princess party,” he said. “It made Jack and Joey cry.”

Jack and Joey are twins, and their play dates with my son invariably involve light sabers, wrestling, swords, and other forms of pretend violence. Their own birthday party this year had a pirate theme. They probably had great expectations for Ruby’s birthday party. I imagined Jack and Joey bursting into tears upon realizing that they were surrounded by girls in princess dresses and giant pink balloons. I have to admit I couldn’t stop laughing when my son told me, so earnestly, about Jack and Joey crying at the princess party.

Of course, to the twins, the princess party was no laughing matter. Their tears were real. Disappointment is a powerful thing. As adults, most of us remember well a few instances in our childhood that made us cry with abandon.I have vivid memories of crying in Mrs. Monk’s first grade class at Greystone Christian School in Mobile, Alabama, during a lesson about clocks. Mrs. Monk was a kind and gentle teacher, and she came over to ask me what was the matter. “I don’t understand time,” I cried. I still don’t. A couple of years later, another incident at Greystone brought me to tears. My third grade class had had a potato-growing contest. Each student had brought a potato to school, stuck it in a jar of water, and waited for it to sprout buds. My potato exceeded all expectations and, much to my astonishment, won the contest. Read the rest of this post at My Year of Questions.