sweet sorrow

Have you ever just needed a good cry? Sometimes it is therapeutic. When you have lots of emotions and thoughts running through your mind, it is a nice release. And I needed that release yesterday. So, while Ammon was taking his afternoon nap, I curled up on the couch under a nice fuzzy blanket – tissue in hand – and watched Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet.

I watched it all the way through. But the water didn’t run. Usually, I’m crying before it even gets started … because I know what is coming. I cry when Romeo is writhing on the floor of Friar Laurence's cell after killing that rascal Tybalt. I cry when Balthasar rides past the man with Friar Laurence’s letter on the road to Mantua. I cry when Romeo and Balthasar again ride past the man with Friar Laurence’s letter on their way back to Verona. I cry as Romeo dies just as Juliet’s fingers start to twitch with life.

That tragic last line, “For never was a story of more woe Than this of Juliet and her Romeo” didn’t do it for me yesterday. This was even more maddening than the depressing notions running through my mind. Just as I was about to give up hope, I remembered something. This whole scenario suddenly reminded me of an Everybody Loves Raymond episode. Of course. One in which Debra requests some alone time after Ray walks in on her bleaching the peach-fuzz on her upper lip (which Ray sees as a Snidely Whiplash-esque moustache). Ray spies on her during her alone time and sees her crying. He goes through a whole day trying to figure out why. Finally, after confessing to seeing her, Debra tells Ray, “I was just in the mood and I made myself cry.” Ray asks incredulously, “How do you do that?!” “I just take my mascara off and sometimes I put on a sad song and I make a crying face and it just comes out!”, she says. Of course, now Ray thinks Debra is a little nutty (enter Brian). Trying to get him to see her side of things, Debra asks Ray, “Haven’t you ever just felt like crying?” Ray: “Yeah, when something happens, you know, when I slam my finger in a car door. I mean, I’m a human being, but I don’t like to cry. I don’t schedule time to cry!”

Anyway, Ray – of course – loses the battle, is unable to prove his point, and the story is over. But the tag scene at the end of the episode is where I’m trying to get to. Ray decides to try out Debra’s theory … unsuccessfully. Just like me. And laughter proved to be the best medicine – yet another time.

So, to shed a little light on this most depressing of tales … here’s that little clip from Alone Time. Enjoy. So much for singing the blues.