Therefore, dark past, I’m about to do it. I’m about to forgive you for everything.
-Mary Oliver
A happy day, well remembered, is a gift from time. We calibrate the other days toward that measure of happiness; they do not cancel one other, they inform one another. The happy day is a visiting stranger who plants in you a hint of hope that someday he will be known again. Happy days end after an appropriate number of hours, leaving behind a starry trail, a nebulous map, elusive, yes, but possible.
The descent into depression is not dissimilar to a country’s fall into madness. Anxiety casts a shadow on everything, the fight for contentment plays out under a fog. Reliable systems crumble around a population too exhausted to react. A few months ago, on a melancholy day, one in a long series of such days, I had a particularly strong urge to return to the location of one happy day I had a few years ago in Amsterdam. My desire was to return to the location, my hope was to return to the feeling. I would not have considered a return trip if my ennui was a little bit charming, or if the sadness was more romantic. Anything other than this anhedonia would have kept me at home and perhaps sealed my fate, but I had reached a conclusive notion that this was the beginning or the end. I was ambivalent about which, and optimistic about both. What I wanted was to recognize myself again through the assertive and hopeful gesture of travel.
I had arranged to meet my friend Willie. It was orchestrated chance — I had scheduled a solo trip to Amsterdam only to discover that he was working there this semester. I was excited to see him, an acquaintance who became a fast friend in inspiring and electrifying ways. He was enthusiastic about my art, I was intimidated by his. He seemed to have none of my struggles — just ambition and good cheer. Around him it was easy to pretend I was driven and engaged. Together, we had mocked the laziness of others but it was my own laziness we described. He had lavished easy praise on me, seemed to really see me, seemed attracted to me in a monastic way that affirmed my own specialness. He excited my ability to be attracted to somebody. He made me want to look better and be better. Did everyone he meets fall under this spell?
I had arrived in Amsterdam early in the morning, groggy after the overnight flight. I indulged in a taxi, and it took the driver several turns around the block to find my well-hidden Airbnb. It was a white, minimalist, private apartment on the warm top floor of a 370-year-old building. The room was comfortingly clean. My room back in Brooklyn had become a disastrous mess of unpaid bills lost in piles of unopened mail. At home, I could not see over the piles of junk; the lack of horizon made me burrow deeply until I defined myself with drowning. This apartment was well above the fray, with views of ornate neck-gables and the bell tower of Westerkerk. I resisted a nap and followed the promise of discovery to the treasures of Amsterdam. I was blissful in my confusion on where these things were located and walked and walked with no purpose beyond seeing new things and stumbling upon familiar things. Dim memories were my map, of nights and days roaming these streets without knowing where I was; drunk, stoned, or sober, and perfectly content. Itineraries formed in my mind and I squashed them quickly. I did not want to set myself up for failing a tourist’s agenda. My one hopeful goal, which was to feel better, would be best achieved if I followed the whims of my walking.
Amsterdam is a city of concentric semicircles. If you see something in the distance, there may be no available straight line to get there, and if you move your way in the direction of that thing, it moves also, and not necessarily closer; it remains a perpetual 45-degree angle from wherever you are at any moment. I made this observation following the weathervane atop Niuwe Kerk. I have no religious longing to visit churches, but I start any international visit to the central cathedral. I won’t light a candle, I won’t say a prayer, but the habit has a pilgrim nature. These cathedrals are the great containers of sound in the world. Western music history begins in dialogue with the sounds of these places. A faint recording of the polyphony of Ockeghem, Josquin des Prez, and Sweelinck danced around the atmosphere of the nave, imprinting itself on stone, wood, marble, and my spirit. This particular church is vast but spare, having been stripped of ornament by the Protestants in 1578. There was a photo exhibition in the church, the Pride Photo Awards, an international exhibition celebrating sexual and gender diversity. Take that, protestants. The winning photo was taken at the banned 2016 Istanbul Gay Pride and featured a girl in rainbow stockings, fiercely observing the marching riot police. The girl, just like this church, just like nature, was pondering the follies of repression. The exhibition had me thinking about the importance of standing up and being brave.
I did light a candle, for the girl in Istanbul, and then I set out toward Museumplein where I could watch tourists interact with the I amsterdam sign. I lingered near the crowd and made myself available to take pictures of the couples and groups of friends who wanted to document their presence in this iconic spot. There is nothing lonelier than this task, but I did it with the good humor of someone intimate with their lonesomeness. Awaking from depression is a perilous situation; desire wakes up too, and after months of wanting nothing, you want everything. The groups of friends, the groping lovers; these are the validated people of earth, and I wished I was with someone. Surely, I’d put my longing into action for once. Being around so much merriment my mood had slipped, so I walked in the direction of the canals. I thought about the couples I had offered to photograph and I wondered if they would recall my face when they looked at the picture again in the future. Would they remember how sad I was, the unknown man just standing around by himself, photographing strangers? Could they tell how close I was to not being there at all?
I received word from my friend. He was excited to see me the following day for lunch and he recommended a place. I replied with my excitement to see him, and followed that message with another. I have something I need to talk about, I wrote. It may or may not be kind of intense. Just wanted you to know you can expect a moderately serious conversation but never fear, I’m down for fun! I marveled at how crazy my messages were.
The following day I was much more rested. My meeting with Willie was at 2:00. My only other plan that day was to go to the Rijksmuseum for its late hours. I packed my bag for a long day out, grabbed an espresso and a baguette near my apartment, and set out for another day of wandering. I had been walking for a bit when I passed an art gallery. I stepped in and said hello to the distracted attendant. My eyes had to adjust from the brightness of the street to the deliberately dark gallery. There were six large photographs, each one lit by a spotlight that concentrated a circle of light on the center of each photograph, radiating outward into an ombré shadow. The black frames of the pictures were indiscernible in this shadow, blending into black walls. The images were dramatic black and white photographs, with fields of the darkest blacks from which emerged the figures of men in anguished repose, modestly draped in deep shadows. The attractive figures appeared to be bound to the wall, upright but not free. Contrapposto against the darkness, like Saint Sebastians of the renaissance but without that saint’s usual sensuality. These were not martyrs but captives of their own torment. They were gorgeous. Heartbreaking. These were not men to desire but men to fear because their pain was too recognizable. I would never have the courage to make an image this close to truth. The figures were all leaning forward slightly, the final gesture of conviction before the slump of surrender. Each of them looked directly at the camera. Was it a flirtation like Caravaggio’s guitar players, or did their gaze meet ours for another reason? See me, they seemed to implore- this is the way I feel and there is no escape. They could not spare themselves this anguish, nor spare me the recognition.
I met Willie in a bookish cafe in De Pijp. He looked great, as relaxed and open as I remembered. I wondered how I looked. I’d stopped looking in the mirror long ago. We found seats at a small table in the front with terrific street views. It was good to see him. We caught up. “How are you?” He asked. “On top of the world,” I answered. It wasn’t a lie. I was in Amsterdam. I asked him how he was. “Amazing! I mean, I’m living in Amsterdam!” It took a few sentences to get my voice to work, I had not spoken aloud for a few days. I inquired about his work, which he knew I admired. He asked what I had been up to and I lied that I was working on interesting things. I made a list of hypothetical projects and presented them as real. He wanted to know more but there was nothing to tell because we were nowhere near the truth- I’d been working on nothing; nothing of consequence and nothing that he would be excited to hear about. I intended to be truthful soon, but first I wanted to be impressive; I wanted him to leave our meeting with the impression I left when we met; I was an inspired person who bravely made beautiful things. I wondered if I lingered in his memory with the same fascination that he did in mine. Did I spark the same curiosity? My lack of honesty stunted our conversation. I had no excuse for being so disingenuous.
He turned to me and asked me how I was, really. Had we reached the time to tell the truth? I repeated his question back to him.
“How are you, really?” Just because I had a lot to say doesn’t mean I wasn’t curious about him.
He said he was “fine- really great, actually.” The capacity to be really great confounds me sometimes. “And you?” he asked, again.
I figured it may work to start the conversation broadly, and if the occasion seemed right, narrow it away from the mythological. “Do you ever think about Atropos?” It was a ridiculous way to start.
“I’m sorry, are you talking about the Fate?” He asked. “Atropos decides when and how you die. Cuts the thread of life.”
“Yes!” I said. “I’ve been thinking about it because I’ve been feeling rather doomed lately. Doomed to have a deep awareness of the wonderful things of life, but my senses are dulled, they fail to be impacted by those wonderful things. If you ask how I’m doing the answer will be that I have many very bad days that require hours in bed.” I cringed at the cliché of not being able to get out of bed. I thought it a pathetic attribute when my mother demonstrated it. Just get the fuck out of bed. “I have this thing that happens when I need to speak about something. I tend to circle around as obtusely as possible, and then I feel accomplished, as if I’d said enough. And then I’m frustrated when my mind has not been adequately read. This happens in all manner of situations, but what troubles me most is the way I do this when I need help.”
“What kind of help?” he asked.
“Any, I guess. Like, if I was having chest pains I would probably tell the doctor that I had a pain somewhere above my waist and below my neck, as if naming the place would make it worse both for the doctor and for me.”
“Ok,” he said. “It can be difficult knowing what you want, and saying it can be really hard.”
“What is troubling, is that I do this about my mental health. I may be thinking a thing and never admit it, in order to protect myself and others.”
“How does that ambiguity protect others?” he asked.
“In the aftermath of my mother’s death by suicide I was tormented by the idea that I had missed the warnings. I was in shock, totally surprised, but when I scanned my last few conversations with her I was flooded with signs. How do you forgive yourself for not seeing them?” This was why it was difficult to speak; if we knew how dire Mother’s situation was, but did nothing to help, we would be left with unbearable guilt, more than the guilt we already had, which was already unbearable. I avoided sharing the severity of my own depression for fear of making anyone responsible for knowing what to do about it. I was attempting to issue a plea for help without the plea or the help. Anyhow I didn’t know what help would look like.
“I didn’t know -about your mom, I mean. I’m sorry. But I think people are pretty careful not to leave signs, right?”
“Mom.” I repeated the word. It’s been over 10 years now that I’ve used the word Mother when I think of her. When she died the word Mom became too painful to say. “Right,” I said. “The only consolation is that the signs were clouded. This is why we are always so shocked by events that we see coming all along. I’ve been needing to explain my condition but I refuse to be that kind of burden.”
“Are you suicidal, do you think?” He asked, using the word that I could not.
“I sometimes wonder if I too am…. I may think about it way too often…… I have lately harbored the idea that death is the only way out of this sadness. I know it’s ridiculous, and I’m sorry I said anything.”
“No, no. I’m glad you said something,” he said. “How serious?”
“I don’t know. At times it feels inevitable, although I’m also pretty smart about this. I don’t believe in hopelessness when I think of other people. And I’ve witnessed people step back from the edge. I don’t like being seen this way,” I said.
“Vulnerable?”
“It’s not the adjectives that I don’t like. I can be called vulnerable, or weak, or brave, whatever. I don’t like being seen. It is strange to me. I can barely stand seeing myself.”
“What about being admired?” Willie asked.
“That’s the worst. I hate it. I don’t deserve admiration. I’m a failure, really, I am. I fall short. Disappoint. Aggravate.”
“Join the club,” he said.”
It was becoming difficult to speak. I needed to deflect, to resort to metaphor. “I was envious of a depiction of the pieta that I saw yesterday. I wanted to be cradled like that.”
“You can ask for that. You should be cradled. But you should also plan the next part; the resurrection part- the second birth. What does that look like to you? Can you imagine it?”
“I have been trying to imagine the future. I just hope for relief from this intensity, maybe then I’ll see clearly and be able to take some action.”
“I imagine it’s an issue of perspective,” he said. “I imagine it must be like trying to take a photograph of a distant landscape, but the camera won’t focus on what is beyond the foreground. I imagine that the foreground is the way you feel now; sadness, depression, it is locked into focus and the distant future is blurry.”
“That sounds about right,” I said. “And being here, away from home, I have a sense that my eyes are facing forward again. Anyhow, travel has been good for me. Talking with you has been good for me.”
Willie smiled and began to gather his belongings. “Let’s walk and talk. Look at some things. Do you feel better?”
“I don’t feel worse,” I said with unintended ambiguity.
“Not worse. So, better?”
“I didn’t break.”
“Not Broken. So, whole?”
He walked me to Museumplein. This was the end of the visit. I wondered if I was ok to be alone. “I don’t know how to thank you,” I said.
“Stop,” he said. “I’m just so glad this worked out. And I’ll see you in the States soon,” he enthused.
“It’s true,” I said. “This is not a serious goodbye.” I recognized the weight of that statement. We hugged, and he was off to some aspect of his new life.
I went to the Rijksmuseum, one of the great art museums of the world. I followed my memory toward my favorite works of art. First the lower level medieval art, stunningly displayed in rooms so dark that the paintings and sculptures seen to glow from inside. I moved to the main floor with the blockbuster paintings by Vermeer and Rembrandt, certain that there was a painting in this corridor that I was particularly fond of. A bird or something. I found it quickly and I was once again arrested by its presence. The Threatened Swan, Jan Asselijn, painted in 1650. The painting was impossible to ignore and its power made me unsteady. The swan was fiercely protecting its nest, frozen in explosive motion with open wings, extended neck, and alert eyes. It takes up almost the entire surface of the large canvas, life-sized and immediate. It is a monumental painting, dark and cinematic. I wondered about the swan in the moments before the approaching dog enacted such fury. Would you imagine the force of defense inherent in this graceful creature? The instinct for survival isn’t demonstrated in a string of happy days, or in moments of mild contentment. It is an eruption, available when needed, graceful, aware, and full of glory. All of this was contained in this swan who seemed to call out to me.
“See me and don’t turn away,” the swan said. “Be overwhelmed by me because my wisdom and my pain are inseparable from my beauty.”
“That’s easy for you to say, swan.”
“The instinct to survive is in you,” retorted the swan.
“The instinct is lost in a cloud of melancholy,” I squawked.
“The instinct is found in melancholy. You are fetishizing happiness. How is happy better than what you’re feeling right now? What matters is that you are feeling something vast, noticing something important about your place in all of this.” The swan gestured vastness with its great wings.
“It’s been so hard for me lately, I said. “I just have nothing to offer.”
“We are not so different, you and me. We are the dark embracing beauty of complex minds and robust hearts. We are profoundly indispensable.”
I remember getting lost on the way back to the apartment in Rembrandtplein. I wish I could see a map of the route I took, because I had walked in circles for about three hours, for what should have been a 20-minute stroll. Every canal looked like the others. I intended to go north, and I was, but I needed to go very northwest and I was instead going very northeast. I had avoided using cellular data, but I’m sure I pulled up the map several times and was unable to interpret it, almost as if I wanted to be lost. I stopped in a bar that I recognized from another, younger, visit. I was alone again, no Willie nor Swan, just me. I collected as many signals to remember as I could, because this was another example of a happy day. The euphoria confirmed some things; I was glad I made the trip; and I was capable of anticipatory excitement. I was a person who loved travel, history, art, and beauty, and I was capable of enjoying those things with myself as company. When you’ve lost yourself at home, you may be able to find yourself elsewhere, and elsewhere is everywhere, including where you are, right now.
“ I don’t like being seen” is hard to hear. Hard to process this imaginarium in which the mirror is the enemy. When the reality is so enviable as an artist, a series of profound encounters and realizations.