'O chianto

'O chianto. Sixty-five is weeping, and in the Smorfia it’s never considered a weakness: it’s a release, something the body does to get its balance back. In Naples people cry at funerals, at weddings, at the stadium — and nobody is ashamed. Here, crying is relief before it is pain. In dreams, sixty-five arrives when something lets go. A tension held for weeks that finally gives way, news that moved you, a memory that came back with all its force. And of course pain: the real kind, which in a dream shows up without the defenses we manage to keep up during the day. The image that leads here is weeping, and the Smorfia lets it speak for itself. Some things don’t need to be explained with other images. If sixty-five showed up in your dream, something was coming out. It isn’t a bad sign — in folk tradition crying is a good sign, because what comes out doesn’t stay inside. That’s the only thing this page feels it can say.