I’m a very emotional person but not much of a crier. At least I didn’t used to be one. Before I had kids, I was more of an appropriate, functional male. Cry when I was drunk, leaving my Mom on an airplane, thinking about the good old days and girlfriends gone by, a really touching scene in a movie. That kind of crap. And I was good at hiding those tears, besides. Wipe ‘em away, and cry by myself in the bathroom later. But even then my tears made sense. I was crying because things were sad. No notes in the margins or whispered asides about my mental and emotional fragility needed.
But all that’s over now. Having kids has wrecked my emotional strength completely. Just like the act of giving birth wrecks women’s bladder control, the whole birthing and raising process has wrecked my crying control. It’s weak and lacking any resilience. I cry over stupid cartoon movies and things that are happy and sweet just as easily as sorrow and tragedy. I’m one more kid away from weeping in my pajamas to some shitty, feel good story from Oprah.
“Why are you crying?” one of Sophie’s nutty classmates asked his Mom when he couldn’t figure out for the life of him why she was crying this time.
“Oh, I’m just…happy I guess. It’s hard to explain.”
“You’re crying because you’re happy? That’s crazy!”
“I know, Colum, it’s just…”
“That doesn’t make any sense at all. Old people’s tears!” He snorted derisively and turned his back to her.
Old people’s tears. Ouch. I’ve turned old and soft and I do shit that doesn’t make any sense anymore. Leave it to the Kindergartners to cut you to the quick. True, you little shit. True. And this was proven to me undeniably, miserably, on my birthday dropping Sophie off at Ms. McClain’s kindergarten class that May 1st.
Ms. McClain was not what you would call a typical Kindergarten teacher by any stretch. She was a crass, sarcastic, Irish woman at the end of her 35-year run of teaching. She was great at her job, but also great at pushing boundaries and pissing off the principal and annoying parents, especially the WASP-y ones. So naturally I loved her, and Sophie gravitated to her like another Grandmother from day one. She would disappear in the folds of Ms. McClain’s dress and underneath her giant sun hat when we arrived on the playground, the kids lining up in a hug line as if they were paying their respects to a benevolent, if not sane, dictator.
One of McClain’s favorite things to make her adorable minion army do was practice song and dance routines for assemblies. Dressed up as turkeys, Indians, leprechauns or Hawaiian dancers, there was always time in the day for some high level song and dance instruction to prepare for the always-upcoming performance. Half the class loved it (mostly girls) and the other half hated it (mostly boys.) I think she enjoyed making the haters squirm even more than enthralling the lovers. It was mostly for her own entertainment, (and the parents who were around and paying attention,) which made it all the more delicious. She was punishing and molding the boys, constantly asking them what a gentleman would do and then making them do a bunch of crap they didn’t want to with a sardonic Irish smile. Like swivel their hips in hula skirts. They all loved her, regardless. She was teaching them, loving them, and having them entertain her all at the same time. Completely Irish and original and they don’t come like that anymore and the educational world is the lesser for it.
It was Springtime and the year was closing in on us, and that meant the Hukilau. This was the big showstopper for the Kindergarten class, with skirts and leis and a very exacting dance routine assisted by Mrs. Guiterres, a sweet faced Hawaiian teacher who helped them 3 times a week, lending some credibility to the ridiculousness of it all, I presume.
They really were terrible. I mean godawful. You had to smile while watching them practice, to split the difference between wanting to laugh at them or shake your head, so you just smile with an open mouth and say how cute they are and think, oh, My God… I supposed they would get better but it wasn’t likely. There were the three OCD girls and the one boy with a bright future in hair design, who were perfectly in step and tune. The rest were on the fringes of the spectrum, either completely apathetic or completely unable to focus, follow along, or care about their upcoming embarrassment in front of their parents and the rest of the school.
But whatever else it was, it was memorable. The spectacle of it all, their intense cuteness and little luau moves. The little girl smiles and the little boy eye-rolling, halfway between toddlers and little kids but on their way out of Kindergarten. All of them I knew so well back then, all the days spent volunteering in her class reading, gluing, cutting, singing. They were each their own creature, different than everyone else and different still from who they would be next year.
“It’s my daddy’s birffday today,” Sophie whispered to McClain, a real feat for her. Anything audible from her was shouting back then.
“Well my goodness! This is a special day everyone! Today is Mr. Green’s birthday!” Cheryl McClain exclaimed to the class, already seated. They all turned around and beamed at me. Nothing is cooler to them than a birthday. 25 tiny happy birthday’s murmured my way. “All right, everyone up! Let’s give Mr. Green a special happy birthday Hukilau!”
Christ almighty woman please no I thought as I practiced my rigor mortis smile in advance of the coming horror. “Oh cwap I hate thith thtupid thong,” Sophie’s little boyfriend Joel seethed, and they all faced me, the music starting instantly, the Hawaiian guitars and Mel Peterson crooning out the catchy and infernal tune, all the tiny dancers swaying their hips and looking at me, most of them still sporting the happy birthday little kid smiles.
Oh, we’re going to a hukilau
A huki, huki, huki, huki, hukilau
And then I started crying. Couldn’t stop. Tears streaming down my face for some horrible, weak reason. All of them smiling, dancing, singing, for me. 25 little voices and that sappy guitar and here I was leaking old person tears as these little bastards did the Hukilau for me. Completely unequipped to deal with things now.
We’ll throw our nets out into the sea
And all the ama ama come-a swimming to me
Crying in a Kindergarten class on my birthday. How pathetic and weird and wonderful in the way things are wonderful when you have no idea where they come from or how to stop them. Maybe there’s a surgery to repair the leaking. I’ve lost all my elasticity.
Ev’rybody loves a hukilau
Where the laulau is the kau kau at the hukilau…
Happiness has now completely mixed with sadness. I realize that makes no logical sense whatsoever, and that makes it all the worse. Old people tears is right. Strange and weak and foolish and wise. All their perfect little faces and smiles and dancing and singing all for me right now, all this purity and effortless sweetness in this moment that was already over and will never come again, just like this way of tribal fishing the old man was singing about was over, just like this music from the crooners of Hawaii 60 years ago was over. If I’d had my kids at 18 they’d be out of the house right now and I wouldn’t be standing here squirting old people tears in front of the worst rendition of the Hukilau ever. So fast old, so slow smart.