I've been told that I should be grateful for this tendency, that I should embrace my crying fits as evidence of emotional candor and a warm nature. She is equally distraught. I can rest assured, she tells me, that no one will ever mistake me for a cold fish. But at work, in restaurants, at the family dinner table, my tears can horrify, infuriate, even intimidate the people I am close to or just happen to sit by. I think of it as a problem and try different devices, like thinking of recipes, to staunch the inevitable flow of tears.
Nothing seems to work.
I've entertained the notion of hypnosis or psychotherapy or drugs to abolish the tears once and for all, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to be like this forever. I'll remain pinned between gratitude for and frustration with the hereditary whimsy that puts my feelings on public display. Maybe eventually I'll even embrace the crying gene, if only because it came to me by way of my grandmother. The dream of a connection, even one woven of water and salt, is pretty much all I've got. N.Y. Her work has appeared in Time Out New York, Premiere and Talk, among other publications.