Dark Thoughts

A friend has been in distress. Overwhelmed by the darkness. I have called without his answering the phone. I understand the need to not need to speak with anyone as well as the darkness. Earlier this month I had mentioned to my therapist that I had been experiencing dark thoughts.

"Not overwhelming dark thoughts. Just recurrent. They come and they go. They don't stay and I'm free of them for extended periods of time."

To most mental aid worers 'dark thoughts' mean one of two things. Suicided or harming other. I was more of the former.

"Do you want to see a psychiatrist?"

I understood the question. Psychiatrist are doctors. They will interview patients and prescribed appropriate drugs to deal with the specific mental condition. I hadn't seen one since my admission to the hospital for cancer four years ago. Prior to my illness I had self-medicated myself with alcohol. It had been a near-fatal cure and no longer viable post-transplant.

"Sure, I'll see a psychiatrist," I sadi, resisting the urge to call them a shrink.

Two days later I had a Zoom meeting with a woman doctor. I prefer a women. Male doctors tend to think that no one is their equal. We spoke for an hour. We covered all the bases. Thoughts of hurting myself. Thought of hurting others. I spoke. She lsitened and asked questions. I answer as truthfully as possible. Her assessment was that I was not in neeed of drugs to to continue with my group meetings for my alcoholism and speakining with my therapist every two weeks. I was in accord with her suggestions and wished her the best.

Thedark thoughts. They are still there. Lurking. I am better armed with tools to fight off depression. I have weathered the storms of the last years. Recreating this me from the ashes of the previous mes knowing I'm not not and never will be a me to satisfy the others. That's okay. The Mes and me know how to deal with that now.

I wrote to my friend.

It's not easy to go it alone when you think you are all alone and the fears prevent you seeing a path out of the wilderness. Why fucking bother? Day by day by day and then fuck it I can't stay here in a room no matter where I go. I'm in a room in Brooklym overlooking the backyards of Clinton Hill. All bearing the scars of a long winter. In the small room most of the time. I don't even know the names of the walls. Escape, a breakout, caught in the wires, breaking not free, but dragging away the fears like the piano in Bunuel's Le Chien Andalou. Always good to have Bunuel as not a friend, but a guide not telling you where to go, but just that there is a path out just like there was a path in.

A Quiet Place To Drink

Luis Bunuel wrote in LAST GASP "I also remember a bar at the Plaza Hotel in New York, a busy meeting place which at the time was off limits to women. Any friend of mine passing through New York knew that if he wanted to find me, he had only to go to the Plaza bar at noon."

Like Luis Bunuel I long shared the Spanish director's perchance for drinking in the early afternoons. With no one, but the bartender and the handy man. Quiet solitude, a double gin-tonic, half the ice, twice the gin. My locals in this century the 169 Bar on East Broadway and Frank's Lounge in Fort Greene. The solitude sheltered from the day by stygian shadows served by Dakota at the 169 and Tim at Frank's. The music guiding the way through the afternoon. Paradise.

The Perfect Martini by Luis Bunuel

To provoke, or sustain, a reverie in a bar, you have to drink English gin, especially in the form of the dry martini. To be frank, given the primordial role in my life played by the dry martini, I think I really ought to give it at least a page. Like all cocktails, the martini, composed essentially of gin and a few drops of Noilly Prat, seems to have been an American invention. Connoisseurs who like their martinis very dry suggest simply allowing a ray of sunlight to shine through a bottle of Noilly Prat before it hits the bottle of gin. At a certain period in America it was said that the making of a dry martini should resemble the Immaculate Conception, for, as Saint Thomas Aquinas once noted, the generative power of the Holy Ghost pierced the Virgin's hymen "like a ray of sunlight through a window-leaving it unbroken." Another crucial recommendation is that the ice be so cold and hard that it won't melt, since nothing's worse than a watery martini. For those who are still with me, let me give you my personal recipe, the fruit of long experimentation and guaranteed to produce perfect results. The day before your guests arrive, put all the ingredients-glasses, gin, and shaker-in the refrigerator. Use a thermometer to make sure the ice is about twenty degrees below zero (centigrade). Don't take anything out until your friends arrive; then pour a few drops of Noilly Prat and half a demitasse spoon of Angostura bitters over the ice. Stir it, then pour it out, keeping only the ice, which retains a faint taste of both. Then pour straight gin over the ice, stir it again, and serve. From LAST SIGH by Luis Bunuel