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63 - Rainy Days and Mondays

Today had been meant to be our wedding day.

Rather than being up early from excitement and anticipation, I was up because once again sleep eluded me and lying in bed wishing for oblivion to overtake me was futile. Instead I drank tea and composed a new song, occasionally glancing through darkened windows at the maelstrom beyond. For the past week the weather had been in sympathy with my emotions; dark clouds roiled around the sky, thunder rumbled in increasingly threatening tones and jagged slashes of lightning ripped the air apart. Raindrops falling down the windowpane had raced in unknowing competition with the tears falling down my face, dripping off chin or sill to pool in soggy puddles on garden bed or damp clothes.

Talking to myself and feeling old

Sometimes I'd like to quit

Nothing ever seems to fit

Hanging around

Nothing to do but frown

Rainy days and Mondays always get me down.

I needed to break out of my slump though, and soon. The new album had been released yesterday and in two days' time Rick and I would hit the road for a series of radio interviews and promotional appearances; I also had some festival gigs coming up, necessitating rehearsal time.

What I've got they used to call the blues

Nothing is really wrong

Feeling like I don't belong

Walking around

Some kind of lonely clown

Rainy days and Mondays always get me down.

Meanwhile Ben was preparing for reading Letters Live at Hay and his role in Black Mass, and would shortly be heading to Massachusetts. Life goes on, Cara. He had been my salvation since nonno passed - unceasingly patient and understanding, always there when I needed him, never pushing for more than I was capable of giving.

Funny but it seems I always wind up here with you

Nice to know somebody loves me

Funny but it seems that it's the only thing to do

Run and find the one who loves me.

But now, I knew, I needed to re-join the world, to shake off my melancholy and find my joie de vivre again. This grieving felt eerily similar yet entirely different to what I had gone through when my mother left so I knew I was strong enough to weather it, but that didn't make it any easier to bear; quite the opposite.

What I feel has come and gone before

No need to talk it out

We know what it's all about

Hanging around

Nothing to do but frown

Rainy days and Mondays always get me down.

Wearily, I set down my guitar, put away my music notebook and took my cup and saucer to the kitchen. Turning off the lamp, I made my way back to the bedroom and climbed into bed, turning on my side to allow my eyes to run over the sleeping form beside me. He looked so beautiful asleep; he lay on his side too, one arm curled under the pillow while the other rested on his hip, fingers curled into the sheet that covered his lower half. Curls fell over his forehead in a way he never permitted when awake – the only exception being his longer Sherlock hair, which he hated. His tubercle – that perfect double curve of upper lip said to resemble the bow of the Roman god of erotic love – made me catch my breath, my fingers longing to reach out and trace their curves. I settled instead for pressing my own lips to them, as lightly as a butterfly, then snuggled as close to him as I dared without waking him, closed my eyes and finally drifted towards sleep.