I am wrung out and tender this morning, as yesterday I had several epic cries. Not the pretty tears that one might disappear with a sleeve or the side of a hand, but great sobbing snotty affairs that left my face swollen and my sinuses raw. When I cry like this, which thankfully isn’t often, I am struck by how beyond my control, how involuntary it is. The veil that obscures my inner emotional world is dissolved by floods of salt water that pour from unmapped reservoirs. I am made see-through. Why and what for?
We seem to be the only species that cries tears in our hightened emotional states. There is surprisingly little scientific certainty around why we cry. A European theory from the 1600’s asserted that heightened emotions heated the heart which then produced water vapor to cool itself. The vapor rose into the head where it condensed and was released as tears. This theory fits nicely with the cartoon trope of the angry character with steam jutting from his ears. I suppose thats what happens if you lack tear ducts.
Further scientific inquiry has debunked this body-as-boiler theory but no absolute clarity as to why we cry has emerged. I like that mystery. It lends itself to the sensations that follow a good hard cry. I am emptied and wind blown, tired eyed and ragged like I’ve gone on and returned from some arduous, harrowing journey but I am uncertain just exactly where I went.