Two days ago I took the dog to the back yard and we both stretched out on the grass in the sun and the breeze. Listened to a recording of Practical Ethics by Peter Singer and watched the sky.

Yesterday I drove to the lake alone, with one hand on the steering wheel and one hand out the window catching wind. Waded in the water, black jeans soaked through up to the knees, swinging my shoes by the laces. Sat on the pebbled shore with my feet beneath tiny waves crashing where the water meets the land. The coolness on my skin was soothing.

Today I made it out to the hiking trails that crisscross between the ponds in the park a little to the north of us. Between the clouds and the breeze and the shade, it’s lovely and quiet here. Feels like it might be about to rain.

I’m experiencing a heavy kind of sadness. It feels like there’s something sitting on my chest, constricting my breath – something big, expansive, vast, dense, solid. Usually depression feels like discouragement, or apathy – a bleak fog hanging low between me and the rest of everything. This is different. I just feel sad, properly sad, and I don’t know why.

Spending time outside is soothing and difficult at the same time. The quietness out here gives me the space to feel the sadness more keenly. I can’t compulsively reach for anything to keep me distracted, numb. I have to let it be there, taking up space, humming, throbbing, aching. I’m sitting here in the moss under a tree, and in my head I’m glancing sidelong over at the big sad, wondering where the hell it’s coming from.

“This too shall pass,” as they say, I suppose. I’ll have to wait it out.