Sunt Lacrimae Rerum

The other day I saw the British film "Pride," about the historically true situation when Margaret Thatcher was trying to starve the striking Welsh coal miners into submission, and a group of gay males in London, perceiving that their plight and that of the miners were similar began raising money for their cause, selecting a small village at random to be their beneficiary.  The miners of this little town at first resisted money from such a source, and the film is about the growing appreciation, understanding, and downright affection between the two groups.  It ends with the miners chartering three or four buses and coming to London to march with the gay males in a Pride parade.  It was at that point that I burst into tears in the cinema, such is my still unquenched yearning for straight, ordinary guy guys to give me respect and love.  And then the tears started to flow again today when I had a few minutes to kill and I watched and listened to Emmy Lou Harris, Dolly Parton, and Linda Ronstadt sing "The Sweetest Gift (A Mother's Smile)," all about a mother loving and forgiving her convict son even as she has gone on to heaven. Behind the tears was the wish that my mother had loved me like that, accepted me for being gay, looked down from heaven on her dear boy.  The tears gushed and gushed.  I quickly typed in Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette and heard the two of them go through the doeful repertoire of "D.I.V.O.R.C.E.," "I Don't Wanna Play House" and all the rest, and every regret I have ever had about my role in my failed marriage surfaced. It was a narcotic, there was no stopping me now  I went on to watch Susan Boyle triumphing in the talent show with that song from Les Mis, tubby middle aged woman that she was, and oh, so great a moment for her, and vicariously for me. Misfits of the world unite and triumph!  Finally, knowing that maybe this would be overdosing I watched the series of stills of Joan Baez and Bob Dylan replace each other as her voice sang out the song "Diamonds and Rust," and marveled at the two of them in the glamor of their youth and the freshness of their love affair.  And so I cried and cried at the sense of rueful regret and gentle yearning in the lyrics and in her voice.  Well, all this narcissism was not what Virgil was talking about with his famous "sunt lacrimae rerum," but, no matter what, there is nothing like a good cry to clean the nasal passages and clear the head.