Day 21: Melon Cauli

Today I woke up feeling melancholy.  Not depressed - that's tough.  But melancholy - which I'm OK with.  What's the difference between the two?  For me (and I realise it's a very subjective interpretation), depression is flat and hopeless, trapped in an tunnel of internal monologue.  Melancholy is poetic gloom* - stark and sad, but darkly enjoyable.  Like pressing a bruise to see if it still hurts.  I've always leant this way - as a child I had a musical box whose lonely metallic notes thrilled me tragically. I used to lie on my bed, turning the handle slowly to drag the tune out as I wept self-indulgently (camp).  The musical box was eventually confiscated (unhealthy) but the tendency remains.  Graveyards, solitude, ruins.  The pure, wintry sound of choral music - Stanford's 'Beati Quorum Via'; Warlock's 'Bethlehem Down'.  I could never wear Clinique's 'Happy' on principle - it seems like a desperate denial and an imbalance.  Somehow, if I admit the melancholy and give it some attention, it lifts of its own accord.  Ignore it and it grows into something unpleasant, needy and intransigent.  Don't want to get all Sith about it, but sometimes it's good to turn to the dark side. 

(* Or a very bland vegetarian main course)

To the City for a job with a super-twitchy client.  But wreathed in smiles when it turns out that I can actually do what I do.  Who knew?  St Paul's has such an odd vibe at the moment.  Paternoster Square is all barricaded off, because of the Occupy London protesters.  If you want to go into any of the shops surrounding the square, you have to be issued with a laminated and numbered permit, which allows you to pass through a narrow gap in the barriers, and grants you access to that shop only.  It's deserted.  Friday lunch time in the City, and there's nobody around.  Just security staff, leaves drifting across the cobbles in the November wind - and me, braving the weirdness for the sake of a falafel wrap, and a bag of Twiglets.  It's interesting - slightly disturbing and Orwellian.  I'm just a number on a pass, man.   

Home with the washing machine rumbling and the fridge humming.  Outside it's dark.  As is the chocolate in front of me.  It's bittersweet with a salty edge.  Like most of my favourite people.