Non-sad tears

It's been an emotional few weeks, there's no doubt about it.

• I passed my one-year mark in Appleton, and as if by magic suddenly felt more grounded and on top of the basics and ready to start building on my solid foundation. Something about experiences passing around the second time - pumpkins, the first snow, the lake freezing, the end-of-year financial forecast meeting, multi-raters being due - it makes you feel more committed to and in control of everything.
• Barack Obama was actually elected president.
• I was confronted by the prospect of a new job with a great deal more responsibility, at a more senior level.
• My guitar playing is getting better. In conjunction with:
• I went to a gig by my guitar teacher's band and suddenly had the experience of being a scholar rather than a fan, which is a transformative experience in my relationship with rock and roll generally, and feels like another kind of ascension.
• This morning I watched my DVD of The Devil Wears Prada, which I still find a completely inspirational coming-of-age story about a woman at work.
• And I've been watching too much What Not To Wear and Say Yes To The Dress (about wedding-dress shopping) on the TLC channel on cable.
  

All of these events are associated with a particular kind of crying.

For so many years all my crying was about the shock of abandonment and grief and loss. I just got used to the fact that all tears that might come up in times of relaxing defenses and emotional vulnerability were those tears. And even during Year 1 year, all guard-letting-down tears were from the grief and culture shock of leaving Sydney.

But these are different. You saw them, on the coverage of the people in Grant Park on election night, immediately bursting forth the second the polls closed in California and CNN flashed on a giant screen, "CNN Projection: Barack Obama elected president," and then flowing on and on as he gave his calm and majestic acceptance speech. He was fine, he had been visualizing this moment for years, and also he knew deep inside that it was only the beginning of the very hard work of leading the nation and turning history around to get back on the path of right. But all of us, we just cried.

They're very particular tears - tears of being moved, tears of happiness and joy but something more. Tears of - I don't believe this amazing and good thing is actually happening. Tears of relief and hope? Tears of being moved by beauty? Beauty of the soul, the experience, the grand human sweep of existence that can have such deep meaningfulishness and love and whatever. How to describe it? I've been trying to work out how to really describe the thing that leads to this kind of tears.

For me, they are coming up most from guitar stuff. I was at the gig, it was the second set, I was bopping along with the crowd, lots of good-time Wisconsin girls out at a bar on a Friday night getting in the groove with a great and competent band. It was no problem I was there by myself - I was there with my teacher but also there with the whole industry and discipline and art form of rock and roll. I was there as a scholar. (It wasn't my first gig as a scholar, I also went to Octoberfest in downtown Appleton and was similarly examining all the guitars and how everyone's hands were moving, but I was so new at it then that it wasn't quite the same.) In the peaceful place I found in the midst of all that dark and noise and movement, I was working through a bunch of things in my mind. I felt a new committment and a new, more mature relationship with rock and roll, after all these many years of having strong and exciting other relationships with it - fan, collector, college radio dj, rock journalist. My mind thought, where is this going to take me? And my mind answered back, I don't know.

And that one thought brought on Obama-election-night type of emotions in me, and I nearly stood and wept with tears running down my smiling face. I was moved by the show. "Moved" is the only word I can think of for that weird emotion of pain but relief and hope and beauty and whatever.

I'm glad I have next week off - I can just sit around at home watching movies and listening to guitar songs that I want to learn how to play and make myself cry.