Sadness

For reasons I don’t understand, the upwelling of sadness that afflicted me halfway through Deepa Mehta’s Water has continued to affect me today. It was actually quite a weird experience: normally movies that make you cry do so with a traumatic event, something that puts a lump in your throat before expressing itself as tears. In this case, I think my overactive imagination was instrumental in my feeling an overwhelming aura of sadness and hopelessness in response to the visuals and stories provided by the movie. It was like the movie filled up a well of sadness and despair that had been sitting empty inside of me, to the point where it overflowed and out came the tears, not only regardless of my will, but regardless of whether the movie itself was sad enough to cry for at that point.

Or maybe today's echoes of sadness are just a normal part of the vicious circle of crying. Since I had tears dripping down my cheeks for at least an hour at the movie yesterday, I have all of the classic unpleasant after-effects of crying: swollen eyelids and itchy eyes, which make me tired and grumpy and inclined to cry again.

I learned during the one period of my life in which I was sad enough to cry every day or two for at least six months, that if you are going to cry at all, it is a good idea to cry all the time. Eventually your body purges itself of whatever toxins or other substances normally cause the swollen eyes, and you can enjoy crying without any of the physical repercussions.

At any rate, though I have not actually been crying today, my mood is matching the dreary weather; with an unformed sadness sitting heavy inside my chest.

This despite the fact that I had my first visit back to Carson Grove Elementary School, reading individually with the kids in the Grade 1 class. I really enjoy reading with six-year olds, even the ones who don’t believe they can read yet and have to be pulled and prodded into even giving it a try.

I'm sad also despite the fact that I have my first night of indoor ultimate tonight, which I've been looking forward to for a couple of months (given that I missed most of fall league with a sprained ankle, but was determined to be back in time for indoor). Based on my team list I think I might really enjoy playing with Team Blue.

Unfortunately my memories of last season have fueled a little pessimistic voice inside my head, which is muttering repeatedly that even if the team does gel, I shouldn’t get used to it, as I’m sure to get transferred off the team again. And probably to team Black, since in all of my years of indoor, I’ve always been assigned to team blue or team black, with the single exception of my five weeks on Red last year (and I foolishly gave back the red team shirt, so I ended up down a shirt for the season, not that I needed another black indoor shirt).

On the other hand, I’ve just looked at team black, and I do like many of the people on that team, and I don’t recognize any terrible head-cases, so that might not be so bad.

On the wonders of indoor ultimate, I will report back tomorrow. Sayonara