I remember a time of deep, dark sadness in my late teens, when I would long to steal away at night to a ledge under the window near my bed. There awaited one candle for each year of my life which, when burning, cheered me, warmed me, transported my thoughts. In my little ritual, I would gaze out the window into the black night, choose a star, then light the candles as if in mourning for my life, and try to imagine traveling all those light years, all that unfathomable distance, to that star. It was scary. The journey often plunged me into tears of melancholy, pangs of anguish. It always was a welcome escape from a life I didn't understand and felt I couldn't control.

A year ago, as I did a short hand reading for a young woman, I was reminded of my youthful stargazing. I pointed to a particular star-like formation in her hand and told her about the secret place inside her that she could turn to for comfort and retreat. Responding to glimmerings of recognition in her mask-like face, I went on to describe this inner refuge as a place of extraordinary sadness to which she could withdraw in the midst of the unhappiness of her life. Why escape from one misery to another? Perhaps, I suggested, it is to feel special. Had she decided that the treatment she had been singled out to receive was so negative that the only way to transcend it was to identify it as special, as magnificent? I told her I thought this was a vital step in the process of turning a negative into a positive. But don't stop there, I proposed. This is an opportunity to move beyond the familiar cycle of grief into the distinction of a great range of feeling and deep understanding.

At the time I was not sure of her response because, while she had listened intently and thanked me for my reading, her frozen expression had camouflaged any emotion. But she came back to me last week and reminded me of the reading. She told me her story.

The place of sadness is still a theme in her life; it stems from childhood sexual abuse. Having always felt so nullified by this fact, she desperately sought some claim to specialness to make her life seem worthwhile and found it only in the extremes of despair. But within the year she had become involved with an organization geared toward aiding families in which incest has made its mark. Thus she feels she has made some measurable progress toward turning that which had been such a detriment in her life into something constructive which gives her some grasp on self worth. Her face is less mask-like. And the Star of Tears in her hand, while still there, is fading.

This mark is something I rarely encounter, yet I suspect that many of us have moments of retreat to the solace of sadness. And, yes, perhaps those of us who do are special as we convert sadness to a source of authentic joy.