5
Dear Monstera,
I have drawn this picture of you in My Little Goth Journal. Aren’t you sublime?
SUBLIME: Lofty, grand, or exalted in thought; Of outstanding spiritual, intellectual, or moral worth; Tending to inspire awe because of transcendent excellence; Divine; Glorious; Imposing
Whereas the beautiful is limited, the sublime is limitless, so that the mind in the presence of the sublime, attempting to imagine what it cannot, has pain in the failure but pleasure in contemplating the immensity of the attempt. —Immanuel Kant
6
Today I went to the lake. Artists with serious faces sketched the lighthouse.1 A woman & her daughter both had poles and gear, but the daughter wasn’t fishing. The mother pulled up a catfish while the daughter sat in a lawn chair, thumbing her phone with dead eyes. It was windy & the water was rough. Two boats with white sails managed to skim along delicately while power boats muscled through, slapping against the waves. Far away, a glitter of seagulls, circling & diving. I found a child’s necklace where it had been lost among the large rocks. I counted the beads like a rosary.
7
We strive for happiness but it’s too fragile. Melancholy2 is more lasting, taking us deeply into ourselves. Who wants that? I have to say I do.
8
It’s now evening & I am home. A hot breeze is blowing. Rain is coming in a few hours. Strong winds & hail, too. I tell myself it’s only weather.
The lighthouse stands for the human quest for meaning: “What is the meaning of life? That was all—a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years…” —Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse
“Melancholy is sadness that has taken on lightness.” —Italo Calvino ; “Melancholy is the happiness of being sad.” —Victor Hugo; “Depression is Melancholy minus its charms” —Susan Sontag