Slippers, or what makes me cry

The tears that we so frequently hold back find their oblique routes through unsuspected alleys. They take us by surprise, and they feel good.

I did not cry in so many life situations in which tears would have been a most natural response. When I was little I was terribly ashamed to be seen crying, so I hardly ever did before others. Only in silence, surreptitiously. I don't cry very often now that I am an adult either, but at times tears catch me unawares.

I cried the other day, over an old memory. It resurfaced from the depths of my childhood, from the kindergarten days in the mid-70s. The teacher assigned us a project - we were supposed to make cardboard models of our own slippers - matching our real life slippers in size, shape, and colour. Mine were blue and red, with a zipper at the front. I remember the final result. I wasn't too happy with it. Still, this memory made me cry.

Later on I tried to understand why. I think that one of the reasons is the loss of that child, of that day and age, of that shape of the world. Ubi sunt? As opposed to that sheltered, cherished boy whose greatest worry was to make a cardboard slipper, I now stand disinherited of that peace and that purpose, and I only wonder where - where has it all gone? Stupid, I know. But so real.