Choking Up: The problem with Parades

Parades make me cry. I don't exactly know why. Patriotism is not likely to be the reason, although sometimes I feel patriotic. A more likely thing is that it's a sociological sense of unity that happens when everyone--principles and onlookers-- are on the "same page." Graduations, weddings, funerals, they all make me cry too.

One of my children was the "Star" in a pageant when she was in kindergarten. We got her up in a headdress that circled her beaming face with a star shape. She memorized her lines to a fare-thee-well. She proudly lined up with other characters in the production and began to walk down the center aisle toward the stage. Then she saw me in the audience and I was crying.

Her smiling face turned cloudy and she lost her decorum entirely. I could see her turning around anxiously as her procession passed my aisle-side seat. The bottom lip went out and the thumb went in. She stood up front-center in her proud headdress with her thumb in her mouth as her teacher read her lines.

Well I really wrecked her life for a few minutes, and trying to explain "crying for joy" was very difficult. I felt terrible.

It's at best inconvenient when you cry at a parade, procession --some ceremonial event. You have to wipe your face repeatedly and figure out how to do it unobtrusively. You get a red nose. Your mouth quivers when you try to speak. You have to try to stop down the feelings that made you cry in the first place so you can go on functioning with the people who are participating with you.

Fourth of July parades are a mixed blessing. The sound of the brass and the sound of people marching moves close and boom, the throat tightens up and the eyes fill up. You get all proud of the USA but you cannot sing along with a wobbly voice. You cannot comment to your companion. Some little kid may look at you wondering what is the matter. Oh, it's terrible!

Given the choice I skip the parade, to be honest. I don't like the business of working up a good case of jadedness to fend off tears.

Sometimes I wonder whether the sunglasses at funerals are really to hide tears. Maybe it's to hide absence of tears? After all people go to funerals of people they are not at all missing. Or they work themselves into a numbness to function in public and cannot cry!

In some cultures they pay professionals to wail at funerals. (I could get a job there, maybe?)

I'll watch the 2007 parade on TV with my Kleenex and some chips. (Sniff.)

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