“The cure for anything is salt water – sweat, tears or the sea.” – Isak Dinesen
I’ve been listening to an On Being podcast where host Krista Tippett interviews humorist and story-teller Kevin Kling. He told the story about the moment that tears came after a terrible motorcycle accident. His wife had come to the hospital and brought him an apple. At first he refused to eat it because he had no taste at all since the accident but she insisted. He bit into the apple and it was the moment his taste came back to him. The juicy sweetness brought with it all this gratitude for being alive and he started crying. Tears, he insisted, are a great way to clean out the body’s toxins. And for anyone who can’t cry, he said that’s what sports movies are for.
It reminded me of my young daughter who once told me in a moment of pulling herself together, “I kept my eyes from dripping.” And on the other end of the spectrum, my dear father who’s eyes would leak so easily in his older years. I’m intrigued by all the work we do when we are young to gain composure and then at some point realize that we carry so much, we have to just let it go. Or let it flow, whichever is most apt.
Kevin Kling also described having three different phases of prayers in his life. When he was a kid, he prayed to get things. When we was a young adult, he prayed to get out of things (like the time he stowed away on a boat). Now, after the accident, all his prayers are of thankfulness.
I think about my own inflection points and the most recent is having kids. Before I had them, even as I was pregnant with my first, I worried about what everyone else would think and I assumed it was a story that I was not able to find a husband and so had to do it alone in my 40’s. Now that I’ve had them, I’m too smitten with them and too busy to worry about that. But what I notice most is that each period of growth has brought a new vibration so that it does change what I pray, think and talk about. I’m slowly discovering life seems to be as deep as I make it and the more I wade in, the richer it gets.
Surprised By Joy 