The Joy of Melancholia
My little brother loves to cry. It's true. He seeks out things that will make him well up with tears. The sappiest, cheapest emotional barbs fill his YouTube viewing history. We talk and laugh about it a lot. I have done my fair share of rolling my eyes and scoffing at him as he grins back, a bit diffident.
Fall feels like it's finally mostly here (except for one upcoming day which threatens to reach 30 degrees Celsius). It's my favorite season. Here in California, it rains very little, but fall and winter is where we see precipitation if we're lucky enough to get it. The few trees that lose their leaves slowly strip themselves of any greenery for the stark beauty of naked branches. The magnolia tree outside of my childhood home will keep its green and tan, broad, waxy leaves. They are, admittedly, a sight I don't appreciate enough, but they do not change with the seasons. The lawns will remain green. The temperature will remain warm enough for shorts for quite a while yet. But, while the sunshine remains balmy, the breeze will feel cool and snappish, less inviting, more independent of the weather at large. The days get shorter. My heart lightens.
I love songs that I've described quietly to myself as "romantic and melancholy." Songs (which are often crooned more than sung) about the struggles of deep human connection. Max Ehrmann wrote in his famous poem, Desiderata, that love is "perennial as the grass." If that is so, tension, frustration, and heartache surrounding love is as perennial as hay fever. Nothing is perfect. That's the beauty of relationships: we cannot understand one another perfectly because we cannot be one another. That's the true heartache. The beauty is that we desire that at all.
When I go to sleep, I like to imagine I'm somewhere. If I focus on the details of whatever world I'm building for myself, my mind has no time to scare me or remind me of things I should have done (or did, to my shame). My favorite place is a small cottage on a low cliff overlooking an ocean as deep and mysterious as any equally large (and equally small) area of space. On the other side of the house is a forest. It's always raining heavily and storming over the ocean with the low rumbling of thunder to accompany the unceasing percussion of water droplets on the windows and roof. I place myself inside with a warm but waning fire and a plush bed. Alone. Maybe there's a cat, but certainly no other people. If you are reading this, you are invited to be alone there with me, should you want to be. Imagine it however you like, but always storming. Always raining. Always alone. Blissfully lonely.
My brother and I find comfort in sadness. I hesitate to call it "sadness," though, perhaps it is for my brother. For me, it is a gentle melancholy. I feel almost unwaveringly happy most of the time. I can't imagine feeling any other way for all the luck I have. There is joy, too, in wallowing in gloom. In any emotion, I think; as long as we are lucky enough to choose to enter and exit that state at will. Like watching a horror film to enjoy fear. I am alive. How lucky. Now to enjoy every one of my many emotions.