I'm an unrepentant, rabid fan of moderation. (I hear it's the slight whooshing sound of the arc right in the middle of a wild swing between opposite poles of the pendulum.)
I really like the way "Slightly Tearful" manages to be both truly sentimental, slightly embarrassed of that overabundance of passion, and then twists the knife into true emotion at the very end. It's a very fine line to walk.
Slightly Tearful
Mark Halliday
in the coffee shop imagining for three seconds what it would be
to outlive my dear Jill
but only slightly briefly tearful because it's a coffee shop after all
and because I do re-realize as usual that the tears would be
largely for me
and the beauty of my devotion
and that in a long blue shadow behind a sweetly hypothetical sorrow
there waits the possibility—
the probability by and by that far more expensive tears will need to be shed
in anyone's life as in mine, so to save for that day seems wise;
accordingly it occurs to me that when I teach the "Exequy"
I'd better not read it aloud in class
because I'd get tearful
even before Henry King exclaims in a sudden parenthesis
that his dead wife was for him a world, his little world;
it's good for the professor to care
but the students sense that when the prof gets weepy
it's not good teaching; a serious frugality of tears
should be our study amid the hasting years.
to outlive my dear Jill
but only slightly briefly tearful because it's a coffee shop after all
and because I do re-realize as usual that the tears would be
largely for me
and the beauty of my devotion
and that in a long blue shadow behind a sweetly hypothetical sorrow
there waits the possibility—
the probability by and by that far more expensive tears will need to be shed
in anyone's life as in mine, so to save for that day seems wise;
accordingly it occurs to me that when I teach the "Exequy"
I'd better not read it aloud in class
because I'd get tearful
even before Henry King exclaims in a sudden parenthesis
that his dead wife was for him a world, his little world;
it's good for the professor to care
but the students sense that when the prof gets weepy
it's not good teaching; a serious frugality of tears
should be our study amid the hasting years.
It's also great advice for aspiring teachers: don't let your subject get the better of you. Contrary to what "Stand and Deliver," "The Emperor's Club," "Mona Lisa Smile" and "Mr. Holland's Opus" will tell you, a grand swelling of the orchestra as your class ovates you doesn't actually make for a meaningful educational experience.
At the end of the day, the job of the teacher isn't to feel deeply. Similar to an actor, the job is to force the issue and make an audience feel deeply. Leave the hankies at home: there are better things to weep over.
Like my dad says, "You'd better quit crying this minute. Or I'll give you something to cry about."
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