Freedom from self-consciousness

Several years ago, I realized that, for a long time, I had been fighting back tears whenever I would see children run gleefully around a playground or hear them squeal with delight as they played, or notice their wonder over wildflowers, squirrels, and birdsong. It would happen, too, when I listened to a choir of children sing at the top of their lungs without embarrassment or when I saw a kids’ soccer team take the field with buoyant energy.

For a good while, I assumed that the tears must have welled up in me because I was grieving something I had lost in childhood but couldn’t quite name as an adult.

Then I noticed, though—and I know this is odd—that I would also get misty-eyed when I saw big men (having been big most of my life) doing outrageous things—sometimes consequential outrageous things and sometimes silly outrageous things. When John Goodman would waltz around the kitchen on Roseanne, or John Belushi would sing and dance like a wild man in his Blues Brothers’ routine, or Willard Scott would dress up like Carmen Miranda or Ronald McDonald or take off his toupee on national television, or Luciano Pavorotti would sing without restraint, I could hardly contain an odd mixture of joy and sadness.