Happiness of being sad
A long walk along the Rhine. Sunshine resting on the water, it has nowhere else to be. The slow rhythm of steps from people passing by. Time feels different - looser, slower; it almost seems to notice me. It does not rush me forward.
What is this longing I recognise?
It is neither urgent nor desperate. No demands whatsoever. It’s simply there, like the river itself - moving, constant, never entirely still. The desire to be met, to be known without reduction. It does not disappear in solitude. It only changes its volume. Once embraced, it settles into something you can befriend.
Melancholy and peace borrow each other’s language. One leans into the other so gradually that it becomes impossible to say where one ends. Sadness does not obscure the world; it tunes the eye to its subtle insistences, its light and line made unexpectedly vivid.
Perhaps this is why it feels, at times, almost like happiness.
I sit by the water and watch the clouds pass through, much like my own thoughts. At a certain point, something like truth appears, briefly illuminated by the sun before dissolving again.
It occurs to me that the radical editing of our true selves is the price we pay for living among others. We learn, gently but persistently, that too much of who we are will not be readily understood. Some of our deeper concerns will meet blank incomprehension, or boredom, or a subtle turning away, not even out of some uncalled-for cruelty, but out of limitation. Most people cannot carry what is not immediately theirs. And so our more intricate thoughts remain largely unseen, of little interest beyond ourselves.
I remember that my biggest childhood dream was to be understood. And I move on, as a pleasant but radically abbreviated paragraph in the minds of others.
The river flows, indifferent and faithful at once.
And then, unexpectedly, a small relief. I touch the cold water and almost believe everything will be all right. An intense hope rushes to my heart. Unendurable. I know this loneliness will walk home with me. It will hold my hand as I cross the streets.
