I have cried at auditions and about every day of rehearsal for the circus residency I'm doing this week. Three days of tears; not a lot but enough.
It could be anything... I'm getting older, maybe. Maybe I'm getting more introspective. But probably it's because of the stories.
At auditions, we weigh and measure the kids for their costumes because they will be in the circus no matter how they do at auditions. We refer to the kids by number but have to get their first and last names for the school's records. The particular school we're in is for children with all kinds of special needs. Some have no parents, some have been taken away from their parents, all are troubled and, I believe, all are being medicated. I asked one kid for his last name and he said, "I don't know."
I didn't feel the tears until I was relating the story to others after auditions. Two little ones. Not much really.
Another story I heard was about one of the boys in the bike act. He's a lovely, quiet little kid who can't seem to concentrate. I spoke about this to his staff guardian -- one of the ones assigned to him for 12 hours a day. Seems he's unable to tie his shoes. He also doesn't retain information well and has a hard time reading and writing. Not too bad for a young kid but it turns out he's eleven. The tears came faster, before I could send them back to where men keep them (away from the prying eyes of the general public, I'm sure).
The others don't come so readily to my memory. Probably stuffed back in with the tears that only make a brief appearance in my ducts anyways. I fear that If I let them come they might not stop.
Another theory is that I'm finally getting in touch with my own feelings. My default setting was fear up until about eight years ago and my default reaction to fear was anger. Now I'm reacting with sadness and quickly too; before fear paralyzes and anger destroys. When will I react with detachment? Or compassion? Or love or at least acceptance? I'll let you know.
I will leave you with a cute story.
The kids have their emotions and tears at the ready. Sometimes they just get so flustered, like when the bike rolls past and you have to get on it and you have already been run over by the thing. This one sweet little girl just got so worked up that she freaked out, shut down and had the beginnings of an episode. So, when she calmed down, I told her how I deal with fear.
I told her that I experience fear too. A lot of it sometimes. I asked her if she had, like I do, a voice telling me not to do things because they're dangerous, potentially harmful and just scary. She said she did as I pondered the wisdom of telling a child in a place that is two steps away from being an asylum that we hear voices. So I told her that when I get those soundings and when the thing I'm going to do is perform or fly on a trapeze -- and I think it's worth the risk -- I just shut the voice off. I actually made a little clicking sound as I turned of the imaginary voice with an imaginary switch on my left temple.
Then we went on with the rehearsal. It was in fact the same rehearsal where I learned about the 11-year-old who made me cry. When it was time for her to get on the bike, I saw her eyes get big and her hands wave side to side as her feet alternated up and down. This is the sign that she's scared and that anything can happen. This time, I swear this is true because I saw it with my own eyes, she put her right thumb and forefinger to her right temple and switched herself off. At least that part of herself that couldn't react with anything but fear. Then she just did the damn thing.
It was sweet.
