Gold Medal Crier

I’m so glad the Olympics are over because I don’t have an ounce of salt left in my body. My first cry of the games came long before anyone’s Easter basket had cost them a medal in pole vaulting. The honor goes to Celine Dion, making her return to live performance in the wake of ongoing struggles with a condition called Stiff Person Syndrome. The rare neurological disorder causes muscles to stiffen and spontaneously contract. The heart is a muscle as are vocal chords. Dion has spent the last several years grappling with this illness, unsure if she would ever be able to sing in public again.

But there she was looking radiant and ethereal as if she were just beamed down from the celestial realm, swathed in a glittering, white beaded gown. Underneath the Eiffel Tower she commanded a world stage with nothing else but a microphone and a rain-soaked pianist for accompaniment. The legendary singer performed “Hymne a l’amour,” a song originally written and performed by Edith Piaf that translates to “Hymn to Love.” It was Dion’s Valentine to the games and the global fans for continuing to support her during her recent personal upheavals. There wasn’t a single misstep or the hint of falter in her sweeping vocal runs, which sounded as pristine and strong as if she had never paused her singing career at all. There was only the raw power emanating from a total command of her talent and the unwavering sense that she was exactly where she needed to be. Talk about sticking the landing, Celine.

And there I was in bed watching her performance on my phone, tears running down my cheeks, the rest of it leaking from my nose, shoulders jimmying overcome by this person’s ability to do what she had just done, to leave nothing on the field using the skills built over decades of her storied music career.

The rest of the bits and pieces of the Olympic games that I watched unfolded in the same teary, bleary way. I don’t know what gutted me more: the spectacular awesomeness of athletic prowess on display (hell yes I count ping-pong in there); or the cutaways to families and loved ones watching with a combination of hope-and-terror for their competing person. Or maybe it was also the antics of the unofficial American ambassador to the Olympics, Snoop Dogg, whose infections joy, delight, admiration, and love for the athletes and their families MADE ME CRY SO HARD! Pass the “torch,” Snoop, I need to take the edge off! Minga!  

Simone Biles and Elmo are trying to murder me by drowning me in my own tears. No jury would convict. None. (Image via Elmo’s Instagram)

I’d like to say it’s just that the Olympics with all of the pressure and spectacle are inherently emotional. But the truth is I’ve always been like this: a gold medal crier. The waterworks turn on for all the usual stuff—tragedy and sentiment in all their permutations. But the dam also breaks for things that might be less obviously emotional to someone else at least. A very, very partial list:

Anything by John Williams

Isolated vocal tracks—any song, any genre, any artist

Leaving Disney’s Magic Kingdom after the fireworks and turning around to see Mickey waving at you from the train platform

The Great British Baking Show

The Beatles: Get Back documentary

My nephews building Legos

Instagram videos of Irish brothers step dancing to pop tunes

Anytime a Muppet is involved in anything

Bob Ross reruns

The Emily Dickinson Estate

The running/training montage from Rocky featuring the theme, “Gonna Fly Now”

 City skylines

A very recent addition: Pop culture memorabilia on display at the Smithsonian Museums in Washington, D.C. You haven’t truly lived until you find yourself snorfling into your sleeve standing in front of Oprah’s yellow couch and pink dress

The obvious question: Why? Follow-up: What’s wrong with you? Both are fair. Who knows for sure. I’m a sensitive person in general, possibly on some kind of empath spectrum if you believe in that sort of thing. All types of things hit me a little differently than someone else. But I guess it comes down to that I feel deeply from knowing that behind the camera or guitar or pastry bag or athletic equipment is another human being. And that individual has done nothing more than activate something inside them that sets off a chain reaction, which results in something extraordinary. Who wouldn’t be affected by that? The droids, of course, but they’ll become sentient soon enough and even they will start weeping listening to the vocal acrobatics of Hamilton’s Angelica.  

It's easy to be hard, as the song from Hair goes (yep, crycrycry on that one). It’s harder to be open about what you love, what fires you up, and what moves you.

And braver, too.