This morning, after the mother-in-law left for Dublin for a few days, I fecked off work for a wee while. (It’s easy to do so if you work with your husband for yourselves; at times I feel I’m not grateful enough for that.) Anyways I did the things I would usually do if the mother-in-law was here: yoga, dog walk, chores, and emails.

Then I read a whole novella in one sitting, Family by Natalia Ginzburg, which was published in the year I was born. Of course it made me melancholy— Ginzburg's writing always induces triste—I was melancholy because of everything the novella said to me about the passing of time, the arbitrary nature of memory, the finding of one’s true family in the midst of one’s unhappiness, and, oh, still being restless despite that.

Afterwards I sat outside where the dog was chasing pools of light to sit in. I could have fished out my phone, turned it on, looked at notifications or newsfeeds. Rather, I thought about the unhappiness of my friends, the world-weariness that I had yet to shake, for the constant rain and bad news had so worn down my reserves of vitality.

Still: spring is quickening. The house martins had returned. Lambs had survived the worst of the storm. Pink blossoms are appearing on the cherry trees around town. Looking at clouds roving the blue bowl of the sky, I could almost enjoy my melancholy, because it meant that I still desired, I still have feeling for this much-damaged world.

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