A love letter to Melancholy

Sweet blue Mellie, 

Even though you are here, so close to me -- sleeping on the couch for a while --  I wanted to write you.  Tell you how you make me feel.  There is no one who has been more faithful to me than you and sometimes I forget to tell you how much I love you.  

I love how you make me slow down.  Really slow down.  I love how you create silence.  The kind of silence that lets me hear the world again.  The birds right now, in their night chatter, the leaves.  The wrinkles of the wind.  The distant hum of traffic, other people moving and racing, while I sit still. 

I love how you make me shaky inside and shaken up.  You always shift my center, and there has only ever been one other that has done that.  I am never the same after you have stopped by.  Something in me has found a new place.  I am rearranged. 

I love how you sit beside me, keeping me company, even when I am most afraid of you.  You say, "Come now, rest your head on my lap.  It'll all be fine."  And that voice of yours, especially when I am tired? The soft tenderness.  The in and out of your breath.  You let me rest in you. I can sleep without worrying. 

I love, most of all, how you make me notice things I would not otherwise notice.  How you pull tears to the lips of my eyes as I watch the most simple things.  The man today, one hundred pounds overweight like me, in his shocking orange reflective vest, jogging.  How he would run a step or two, then walk, then run a few more, then walk.  How he was wearing those new shorts, those sparkling white sneakers.  You made me watch him, see him, want to love him to the end of the one mile loop. 

I am not sure I would have noticed him, his dogged determination,  without you.  When I am happy, so much passes me by. 

And the woman in the store, her arms stuffed with packages and fruit.  How, when I saw her, I thought, 'This is what we are doing all of the time.  Trying to hold too much.  Carry too much."  How I reached over, without asking, and she let me help her place her items on the conveyor belt.  You are like that, Mellie.  Even though some might say you stack things upon me, I think in reality, you are the one that peals the sadness off. 

Or the woman in church.  Her husband.  Her hand resting on his belt as she unsteadily walked back down the aisle after communion.  Her white t-shirt.  Her jeans.  How beautiful she is even in the midst, beautiful to the very end. 

Or the woman in the third pew crying as her son stood next to the minister.  And him.  How he patted down his hair and stood with his hands clasped in front of him, just like man.  

And the woman with the woman, the one taking pictures.  Oh, Mellie, you snuggled up close for that, took my hand and held it in your own hand.  You turned to me and said, "It's because you feel this ache that someday you will love too."  Then you put your hand on the back of my neck and held it there so that I would not slump over and weep.  

Melancholy, you have held me through the hardest times.   You have walked beside me.  You have snuck into the milk crate on my scooter.  You have laid down beside me, just so that I would not sleep alone.  You have stood vigilant guard against your darker sister, you have let the sadness drip, drip, drip on me without torrent and destruction.  Thank you for protecting me from the one the unhinges me.  Thank you for helping me take a dose that I can handle. 

You are awakening again, I hear you rousing from the sleep.  Seems we need to take a walk tonight.  Down the long block.  You'll show me the azaleas.  You'll create the jag in my throat as we pass the sounds of a family laughing around a barbecue.  You will point out the cottonwoods.  Let me stand for a while in front of that house I love on Meadowbrook, the one painted green.  Then you will touch the small of my back and keep me walking.  

You will keep me walking because you love me.  And then, as always, you will turn me back to home.  

Yours, 

Jean