Transatlanticism

There something acutely sad about crying in public that transcends the normal levels of misery and maudlin and cuts to the very heart of what it is to be sad; the polar opposite of ecstacy and joy - the deep heartbreaking sadness that is perversely a pleasure to experience a few times in one's life.

Like all people I have wallowed in unhappiness from time to time, taking situations where I was permitted concessions of behaviour to moan and whine and be the centre of attention or to glut myself on alcohol and nicotene to beyond excess on the excuse of unhappiness.

Twice in my life have I truely experienced the thrill of true sadness. Both occassions were incredibly similar in occassion, motiation and location, but it is not the kind of scenario one can concoct on a regular basis.  It's addictive and compelling and heartbreakingly beautiful to experience.

The first time was after I had left the German.  Despite all the circumstances we had left each other with words of love rather than recrimination or regret.  The day before we had both come back from the Fusion festival in Neustrelitz together, hands held on the train, mostly wordless and expressed ourselves through last touches and longing pathos-laden looks through a sleepless night.  I left in the morning, the word "love" unspoken but unrequired, and with the thought that I would never see her again.  I landed in Paris Orly in a fug of sleeplessness and climbed on board a busy commuter train into the centre of Paris.

I was still coming down from Fusion, packed with stimulants and depressants, my mind over-flowing with recent memories, and smells, and thoughts unspoken, and words mis-said.  It was a perfect storm waiting for a sudden lightning crack to bring down the rain.  At the first stop from the airport, a man came aboard with a guitar and a long patched coat.  He immediately began to sing a chanson of such aching beauty that it took barely a few notes before the tears began spilling from my eyes.

He must have sung all the way from Orly to the Gare Du Nord.  By his second or third stanza, I was unable to keep my tears to myself.  Even with my head plunged between my knees as I sat on the floor, arms wrapped around my knees, the shaking of my shoulders would have made it to obvious to everyone that I was wracked by sobs.  The tears did not just run river down my face, they flooded.  I could hardly breathe from the effort of forcing out the individual sobs, and my sleeves were soaked with salty water. 

After a while I became embarrassed by my public display of emotion but this only made my anguish worse.  I could not have stopped crying for anything; every moment of tension, of unrequited and requited love for the German poured out of me. 

But no-one stopped to ask me if I were okay, no-one but the Chanteur even looked at me - and he took it as a sign to sing get sadder chanson d'amour.  No-one looked at me, they all tried to ignore my suffering and that was the essence of this sadness.  I could have cried at any time given the right stimuli but I had not - I could have cried alone and in private, keeping my misery a secret thing.  Instead, I was unable to stop myself showing everyone in that carriage my exquisite sorrow.  That no-one acknowledged, that all those other human beings saw one of their own in the deepest, most painful place one can be and did nothing, said nothing, to comfort him.  That was a sadness beyond all others.

By the time the train pulled into the Gare Du Nord I was done. I was cleansed.

I tell this story now because this morning the same thing happened again.  After a largely sleepless night, after a full twelve hours of exchanging thoughts and emotions and words of love, love expressed in that most ineffective and useless of little words - "love" - she had left me.  Left me to remain with her husband.  In the last she admitted he feelings for me, and elicited the words I had not wished to say from my mouth and from my heart.  I feel briefly asleep with a smile on my face, and awoke a mere two hours later to find her gone. Gone.

I stalked the house for a few hours, trying to rationalise it, trying to justify this act.  I blamed myself, and I blamed her husband, and I blamed her.  Mostly, I hated myself for allowing myself to fall for a woman who was so patently unobtainable.  "The distance is quite simply much too far for me to row; It seems farther than ever before."  I was full of dispair: I had shared too much with her - she held a small piece of me and I either wanted it back or to give her the rest and neither was possible.  In the end, I decided to come to work to bury my emotions in disclosure statements and bundle indexes.

I had not felt like crying at all.  I was sad, but not like that.  This time, no drugs, no excess, and even a little sleep.  I sat down in the carriage and watched the woman sat opposite put in her earphones.  Almost without thinking I mirrored her and pressed play on the song last played. Inevitably, unavoidably it was Her song:

"The Atlantic was born today and I'll tell you how;
The clouds opened up and let it out."

And there it was.  The same moment, the same feelings, everything.  This time there was no chance of keeping my tears to myself.  Aching sobs, jerking spasms, eyes streaming, nose running.  No chance to breathe, no chance to stop, no desire to stop.  For an hour, I cried, spilling my feelings onto the floor of the carriage.  For an hour I cried and not one hand rested on my shoulder, not one voice tried to console.

It was exquisite.

But this time there was no finish.  There was no release. I tried to squeeze her out of my soul one tear at a time and yet still she pervades me, still she consumes my mind and crushes my heart.

I need you so much closer.