If she cried at her baptism, it would have been as water dripped onto her head, comingling with her tears. Under the murmuring Latin of a priest regally adorned, candles would have burned near the field of her vision, still sensitive to light. If she cried then as a nascent human being, it wasn’t because she was scared. It was because she wanted to be a part of the water and to feel as it did-at peace in whatever container it found itself.
Outside of the womb, such a strange and unprotected place with too many sounds and lights, to be water would be familiar. So she cried. But of course, no one wanted her to cry. And when she did they didn't understand why she was crying. Crying is a sin in this new world so often to be squashed or extinguished so everyone else can feel comfortable. Though they thought she was, how could she be afraid of that which constituted the majority of her human form? She could not be afraid of something she could manifest herself. Water was the closest thing to home in this new world.
She’s older now, but in a new container. On Sundays, she baptizes this cathedral of flesh, for only one that she inhabits, in tears. She is a fern, self-contained, a humble container, but a sturdy one. No priests, no adornment to bless it anymore, just a body that has produced another human life. A body that can endure pain for good reason, and one that can endure pain inflicted with ill-intent without complaint.
A Taurus, dependable and loyal, but kept in isolation for so long, she ran through the red flags again and again, as she was poked and prodded. There was nothing for her on the other side. They didn't want her to be nice, they wanted to train the worst in her to emerge. She persisted just as the toreador wanted her to do, so that he could be the star, so he could look like the hero for avoiding the charges he in fact wanted her to make, prodded her to make. And when she discovered the game, when she knew there was nothing in it for her except humiliation, they rooted for the toreador. They hoped he wouldn’t fall prey to her, when in fact she was doing exactly what he, what they all wanted. And at the end, there were no laurels for her. No one cared about the bull, bleeding out, exhausted, though they may call her an honorable opponent once defeated. No one cared that she discovered the game played upon her. The toreador gets the laurels for evading her, for mastering her, for making her the dumb beast who persisted for no reason other than to entertain him, to entertain the crowd he brought in.
She survived. She lives in a field now, wounded, but walking. Out in the grass she thinks that if she were a scientist, she would conduct an experiment where two plants were watered. One with tears of joy, and one with tears of sadness. The tears of joy would come on days when her daughter was with her and the tears of sadness when her daughter was so close by and yet so far away. She would study the growth of these two plants over time. It is a mystery of life that the extremes of life, exuberance, and sadness can elicit the same response. What does that mean that the answer the body gives us is water, the stuff we are made of? She stands above the plants and she lets the tears flow at will. One with joy, one with sadness.
When she begs and pleads with God, or that overarching cosmic presence, or the communal spirit of our existence, she is given tears. They are healing, apparently, the proteins in our tears can actually help. Different types of tears can produce different types of proteins as if our body is producing for us an antidote to whatever made us cry. And so when she is at her saddest, begging for help, she is reminded that our human bodies simply aren’t big enough containers for the full spectrum of what we’re able to feel and experience. We overflow into the larger container of the universe. It helps for a small moment, for her to know that she cannot exist alone. Even though she is alone. In a cathedral for one, because she will not let vampires cross the threshold.
She is no scientist, but she knows cells are exchanged in pregnancy and they live on forever and so she is never truly away from her daughter and her daughter is never truly away from her. When she cries, she heals them both. When she cares for herself, she cares for them both. When she pleads for help, she asks for two. Though her body is now a cathedral for one, it is a one with a subtle duality. A oneness that was never truly severed upon birth and so she is then, still connected to her own mother and her grandmother. She is not alone in this cathedral and when she protects it, she protects them all, and when she loves it, she loves them all. And when she honors it, she honors them all and any who may come in the future.