cutting through

so, my job makes me cry a lot. you see, onions are in SO many things that i make, whether it be soup, or lasagna, or moussaka, or pico de gallo. my co-worker, christina,says, "it's good! the onions help you clean out your eyes! now you see better the things you need to see!". christina is a fairly enlightened being.

i haven't really cried, though, for a while. until tuesday night. i came home from work in the early afternoon and took a nap to prepare for my evening (i've been going to this meditation class which goes late into the evening, such that i fight so much to stay awake that by the time i've made it through the class, i'm entirely wired and unable to sleep). i don't remember dreaming, and i woke as the sun was setting outside. i watched the colors melt into the western horizon, and then turned from the window as my housemate, sarah, entered the kitchen. "hey, how are you?" she courteously asked.

i thought about it. "i'm sad," i said, and then, spontaneously, i burst into tears. because i actually felt sad. really sad.

at first, i tried to fight it. i had things to do, places to go. but sarah held my hand and grounded me in the present, and i realized that it was time for me to feel this feeling. i was afraid of what might happen if i took the lid off and let it all come forward, but i did. i sat with my sadness, and i cried for hours. after awhile, it wasn't so scary. it wasn't despair, it wasn't hopelessness, it was just sad that i felt.

eventually, the tears stopped. all the thoughts supressed beneath the sadness flowed through my tears, and i felt lighter. i looked around the room at the christmas lights. they circled the ceiling like a halo. i could see the beams radiating from each little bulb, some rays shooting heavenward, and others out into the room. and then i noticed that every light in the room shot a ray, like a spiderweb, into my heart.

i suppose that, if it had a form, sad would be an onion, too.