Whenever I feel so sad that I want to jump out of the window, there is only one place to turn.
The flow of time has taught me that certain varities of low mood can be matched with certain songs, and I reach for these at the right moment and feel the condensed fog of misery loosen.
There are occasions - once every couple of years or so - when music is no longer sufficient, and I need a more severe remedy.
And it always happens randomly that I put my hand on my copy of The Bell Jar, which for months at a time sits quietly breathing next to Gough Whitlam's account of the end of his Australian premiership; next to Milan Kundera; next to Eco.
As ever, I fished out Plath by accident, and stared at the profile picture on the cover with its blonde halo: a familiar stranger; the longest shadow ever cast by our species.
Plath is the balancer of forces, pushing her reader closer to suicide as she simultaneously discourages it. In the end, I arrive back where I started, but increasingly sure of the fate which one day awaits.
Throughout the book, there is a sense of inevitability, a mere holding-back of the tide which must come and sweep everything away. We know now that Plath did eventually succumb, that her descent as a teenager was no one-off and would instead sharpen her legacy.
Some of our number spend a lifetime swallowing back the suicidal urge, and, for now, Plath returns it to the depths.
I already know it will bob back to the surface, though, a dead weight shimmering with my own reflection, and a reminder of what is yet to be done.
