Sadness Gets Its Foot in the Door

This is a photo of the cartoonist Roz Chast with a sculpture depicting an angry sheaf of wheat.

Today's a good day to talk about sadness. ("Oh no!" you're saying. "There's enough freaking sadness in the newspaper.") But yes, sadness has been a guest in my house, blowing her sweet breath over my desk, entwining herself with the flowers in my yard. When I am in this mood, the rhododendra are sad, the bright little roses are sad, even the pansies are sad.

It's terrible when they're sad because I love pansies, especially these, which are velvety and dark, exciting red. Or a wet, shimmery-looking royal purple with yellow.

We finally bought the swing we had wanted for so long, a completely fun old-fashioned swing with a magenta cushioned seat for three people that can swing out over our hill. There is an awning to protect us from the sun.

It is romantic when the two of us sit on it together, huddling close and looking at the twin mounds of Mount Beacon that the swing almost seems to touch.

We feel childlike with joy, too, when we swing on it alone or together.

But when I am sad? Then sadness curls her legs around the swing too and envelops it, with that particular feeling of unfulfilled hope, happiness that was right here about to happen but didn't. Tears so strangely copious that they fall in my ears as I lie in the bed.

What do I have to be sad about? Nothing, probably, or chemicals, but there is, I guess, one thing: the book I'd been working on for three years was rejected by my agent. I'd say this is a legitimate thing to grieve. I worked on this thing and I'm not sure it's ever going to come out, like a baby I have been gestating that is, I don't know, either going to be heavy in my body forever or perhaps will be sucked away into the bloodstream. Recovered by my body, but remaining in the capillaries like a ghost inside me.

Because my agent has her finger on the pulse of the publishing market, her rejection probably means that this particular book is too obscure, has too weird a form, or maybe even is not good enough to be published in the current publishing ecosystem.

Not good enough.

I know what I just said is explosive, because no one is ever supposed to say that any of their art might not be good enough. Not in the age of social media, not in the age of shameless self-promotion. Careers don't grow on trees, after all. Reputations don't, either. But I wrote it as a novel, sort of, and I am new to novels. I am used to writing memoir and creative nonfiction, which are not that different from novels, and yet they are not novels. Possibly I made some rookie mistakes? It is also a very weird book, and the current publishing climate is not particularly favorable towards weird books. Things are supposed to be digestible, identifiable, sellable. It is supposed to be crystal clear who the market for the book is, and exactly how much revenue it will bring.

But I don't write to generate revenue. Can we go back to talking about sadness? I love this thing I made, which is part memoir, part novel, a fantasy patchwork, a new thing. I like writing short pieces, because they can be powerful in a small amount of time and space, but I also like writing books, which are huge and solid, a whole universe in between covers. I like creating universes and birthing them out onto my sheets. They wriggle there, and I name them and bless them and show them to people.

There might be other reasons I am sad. My partner is exploring some completely new things in therapy, which I'm frightened will turn my world upside down. My writing and my partner have been my ground, and my ground is a little unstable right now. I feel like Janet, who was the lover of Tam Lin, a man kidnapped by the queen of the fairies. When Tam Lin comes riding through the woods with the queen and her fairy army, Janet must seize him and hold him, though he temporarily turns into a snake, a pouncing tiger, a roaring fire.

Janet succeeds, and so, I believe, can I. All I have to do is keep holding my love as she changes.

I have been unusually lucky in my publishing life, getting published early and often, winning prizes. And I always did well in school, which means I am accustomed to having A-pluses next to my name, and even gold stars. I am not used to being evaluated and coming up short. I am not used to failing, if this is what this is.

Capitalism is all about failing, though. In our system, there needs to be at least one loser for every winner. Potentially millions of losers.

And life, of course, is all about loss and imperfection, at least partly. It's that that puts the sweetness in the irises growing by our front door for the first time, with ridiculously radiant blue petals.

It's that that puts the sweetness in my wife and me clasping each other full-bodied on the sofa, my head by her head her stomach by my stomach, her arms around my shoulders. Together like that, there is nothing else I want, nothing I could possibly need.

We're going to die, and probably not in the same moment, which means one of us will have a gaping loss. But before then I have her completely, and not even my fears or my sadness can drag us apart.