I want moonlight

~ Live & Learn

Blue-melancholy

Everywhere you look these days you see something on how to be happy — how to manifest abundance, desires and success, find your bliss. […]

Whatever happened to experiencing the grace of melancholy, which requires reflection: a sort of mental steeping, like tea? What if all this cheerful advice only makes you feel inadequate? What if you were born morose?

Melancholy, distinguished from grief, is not caused by events, like losing your job, the passing of beloved pets, your miscarriages or health problems. Nor does it vanish when you receive excellent news, like a big film star optioning your novel, or being invited to an all-expenses-paid trip to Venice for the Biennale.

Melancholy is more … ephemeral.

It visits you like a mist, a vapor, a fog. It is generally uninvited. And as some people are born into royalty, wealth and prestige, others inherit a disposition for sadness. […]

Should melancholy descend, you may as well welcome it, wear your finest lounging outfit; give it your finest fainting couch or chaise to lounge in, or that hammock stretched between two elm trees. Let it settle in.

[…]

I want moonlight.

~ Laren Stover, A Case For Melancholy

Credits: Photo via Sweet Senderipity

26 thoughts on “I want moonlight”

  5. I see melancholy as a prelude to necessary contemplative periods which allow one (me) to deal with the world and all those people out there. Melancholia is my personal warning that I need solitary time. If it can be accompanied by moonlight, the transition to a kind of steeling contentment (ready for socializing without resentment) is all the more attractive.

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    1. Patrice, you are (so) much further along in figuring out the beauty of melancholy. I need to be cautious about misinterpreting the period and letting it slide me down (below melancholy). Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Your approach is inspirational.

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  6. Well…I think…melancholy perhaps becomes a bigger part of who we are as we become older. Seems that way anyway. It’s learning to live with this new becoming that is definitely a challenge…especially since some of us can’t just go lie in a hammock in our best lounging outfits. Melancholy would become my new best friend if someone would let me do all of that.

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  11. As others have noted, much wisdom here. I’ve been dippin’ my toes in the melancholy pool a bit today as a matter of fact. It’s been a cold, rainy day here, bringing a chill that settles in the bones, and I’ve let my mood mirror Mother Nature’s. It felt good. Don’t feel the need to dwell in this state indefinitely, but sometimes there’s a sense of coming back to oneself in just ‘riding the wave,’ like striking a tuning fork and allowing the sound to resonate.

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  12. I love what you clipped, and the whole piece paints a slightly different picture. Melancholy as a temperament is another genetic gift that keeps on giving. As for perfume that matches the mood, I have a whole collection of incense for just that purpose.

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  13. fascinating post. Val’s comment about yearning and understanding really resonated with me. I find the concept of ‘Bliss’ or a perpetual state of Happiness unrealistic. Whereas, a mindset of contentedness is for me, a better pathway. Another good post to ponder. 🙂

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