Harold Loves Maude

Status Update

2008-08-30T11:56:00.002-07:00

Fans of Harold Loves Maude:

Though it may look as if this blog has gone stagnant, do not despair. Posting to this site has been temporarily suspended while a book of Harold Loves Maude is being compiled by

Touch Touch Publishing

. Once the book has been published, regular posts to this site will begin anew.

Stay tuned for more details!

Le Stade Du Miroir

2007-04-08T18:06:00.000-07:00

I finally cried tonight.

It came unexpectedly, in part because I have never cried before and in part because I was lying calmly in bed at the time. I was just drifting off to sleep when I realized the muscles in my throat hurt. My eyebrows furrowed, and my body felt intensely flat, as if I were merging with the bedsheets. I turned on my side, pulled my legs into my body. It was 1:06 a.m.. I hugged my arms together. I ran my hands up and down my arms slowly, and I was sobbing.

My face tightened and my mouth fell open soundlessly. I couldn't feel tears actually emerging from my eyes, but my face was entirely wet. I did not understand why my throat could utter no sound. My entire body was tense. It was like vomiting without the nausea. Suddenly, I took a sharp inhale through the mouth and made a loud croak that cut through the heavy silence in my darkened bedroom.

At that point, it was unstoppable.

What upsets me most about the whole ordeal is that it was entirely unwarranted. Quite to the contrary, things have been quite positive and pleasant of late.

Over a month ago, my mother took me for one of her infamous afternoon teas in the garden. These teas are known both for their unending potato salad sandwiches and their unyielding conversations. But at this particular tea, my mother informed me that I would no longer be seeing the therapist she had been sending me to. In fact, to my great surprise, my mother informed me that she would no longer be sending me to any therapists. She had enough of therapists, at least so far as they relate to me. I asked her if this meant I was cured of whatever malady it was that sent me to a therapist to start.

My mother told me she had made her peace with me. That afternoon, a little over a month ago, my mother told me she had finally decided to meet me at my terms. She would no longer send me to a therapist or schedule me for luncheons without first asking for my preferences.

It has been nothing short of a magical time since that afternoon. I will admit I was skeptical at the start. The very next day, being a Wednesday and my mother's cribbage night, I resisted the urge to delve into a fresh copy of On Death and Dying, anticipating my mother's customary intrusion at quarter to five in preparation to greet her guests. As guests began to arrive and no knock came a gently rapping at my door, I thought I might that moment shed my first tears of relief and hope. So long had I wished to be rid of those evenings at cards. I have never had a penchant for strategy and certainly not one for cards.

These past several weeks have been a more productive time for me than I have had in years. I once again take my weekly trips into the city to people-watch at the library. I have begun to read at an astronomical rate. I am experiencing a freedom of movement in and about my house that I have not felt in years.

My days are now up to my own devices. In the mornings, I come downstairs and willingly make inquiries of my mother about her upcoming day, freed by the certainty that I will not be apart of it. And, I must admit, I believe my mother is pleased with our new arrangement. She seems to have continued forward with much the same activities as she did before, but there is now the blissful absence of arguments between us.

The other day, I came into the kitchen just before lunchtime. All morning, the cook had been working on a roast for a lunch of sandwiches and soup. But I must confess the waft of the roast had seduced me by mid-morning. No matter where I escaped to, the breeze brought word of garlic and fatty juices. It was intoxicating.

When I made my way into the kitchen, I was startled to find my mother already peering into the oven. I cannot ever recall seeing my mother doing anything in the kitchen, let alone investigating a kitchen appliance. But that morning it was clear that my mother and I were of similar minds regarding that roast. It occurs to me now, that moment might have been the first of its kind for my mother and I.

I could see immediately that my mother was as startled as I was to meet in the kitchen. She had been near enough to the oven window to create breath fog, shielding her view from the light with her hands to better inspect the roast. My mother shot upright when I came into the kitchen, quickly applying her hands to her perfectly kept hair.

My nostrils flared at her poor subterfuge, and we locked eyes. For an instant, we stood at opposite ends of the kitchen, a good ten feet apart, eyeing one another.

Then, my mother laughed.

I have heard my mother laugh a thousand times at dinner parties, functions, afternoon teas. Yet after seeing her laugh that day in the kitchen, I know now that she had not really laughed in years either.

That this unprecedented bout of tears should strike me now, in the midst of this glorious time in my life, is unjust. I am certain that I am happy now. For the first time in years, I look forward to each day. I lie in bed each night and imagine the next day, preliving it in my mind. Perhaps I will create a garden cemetery around my mother's failed cabbages and carrots. Perhaps I will go into the city and find the homeless man who circles the block, day in and day out, under the delusion that he is driving; the man is fascinating, obeying the traffic signals at every corner. Perhaps I will place my own obituary announcement in the newspaper again.

I am shaken to my core about having cried so. A part of me misses my regular appointments with the therapist my mother sent me to, though only because I am fairly certain that this is precisely the sort of thing he would have wanted me to report to him. The root of these tears is elusive, particularly in light of my new found enjoyment.

For the first time in my life, I find myself worried about my life.

What does Me know that I do not?

The Indelible Stamp

2006-09-27T23:43:00.000-07:00

I have had a dream of eyebrows.

In this dream, I see only eyebrows, my eyebrows. I am looking into a mirror, but focused only on my eyebrows. They are magnified and in extreme detail. I am certain I have never looked at my eyebrows in as much detail as I have dreamed them. Now, having had this dream and having subsequently examined my eyebrows, I know that my subconscious mind has always known my eyebrows.

In this dream of eyebrows, I know that I am preparing for a normal day and it is morning. There are no clocks, nor daylight. I know that it is morning the way things are simply known in dreams. In this dream, I have the feeling of morning. In the morning of my dream, I can see clearly the shape of my eyebrows, the way they rest over my sockets. I cannot see my eyes. Neither can I see my forehead. But both are there, framing my eyebrows but just out of frame.

In the dream, my eyebrows betray no emotion, but only rest upon my face like a blank check waiting for the day’s charges to be filled in. I am surprised by the expressionlessness of my eyebrows because, in my dream, I am surprised by their uniformity and shapeliness; I expect to see surprise there, some betraying arch or furrow.

I stare at my eyebrows, noticing every hair and the way they all lie together as a team, no follicle nudging its hair out of step. They are well-shaped as men’s eyebrows go, with no errant hairs spreading to my eyelids at the outer ends. The inner ends, too, seem to form a clean row of roots like stalks of sunflowers all leaning towards my temples.

In this dream of eyebrows, I realize that they are my mother’s eyebrows. This is not to say that I realize that I am looking at my mother’s face and my mother’s literal eyebrows. Instead, in this dream, I am looking at my own eyebrows and realize they are my mother’s heritable eyebrows.

Had this dream ended there, I might have been able to discount it, dismiss it as one of those shocking and unpleasant dreams that rears its ugly head just before the alarm sounds. Instead, the dream persists. I continue to focus on my eyebrows, feeling their congenital weight.

I have always considered myself to be an individual of few expressions. On many occasions, in fact, my mother has made a point of criticizing this fact.

Upon receiving dark blazer from an uncle, “Harold! Show your uncle how much you love that color on you.”

Upon explaining my hopes of someday becoming a tailor, “It would iron the lines on my face if you would simply grin when being facetious, Harold.”

In general, my expressions are: watching, sleeping, confusion. Beyond this, I have never given my face much thought.

I am concerned about my eyebrows. I am concerned about my eyebrows because I am much accustomed to my mother’s eyebrows and the way they orchestrate the rest of her face. I have spent these last weeks photographing my mother, catching her unawares or much distressed. I have enlarged each photograph, caring only for the expressions. The walls of my bedroom have come to regard me with mixed emotions.

Here, both eyebrows arch sharply into central furrows, the outer edges sloping down towards the corners of the eyes. The furrows seem to pull the muscles of the nostrils, causing them to flare upwards. These eyebrows are displeased.

There, the left eyebrow, and only the left, seems to flatten itself out entirely like a miniature horizon as the eye sets below it. Meanwhile, the right eyebrow maintains it composure, holding its arched shape. The skin about the eyebrows is smooth on both sides, yet there is a distinct transition zone of tension in the expanse between. These eyebrows are disapproving.

Near the window, the eyebrows seem unattached to the musculature beneath, as if they were simply laid on the skin to rest a moment. Those muscles that would hold down the brows instead spend their time tightening the eyes and upper cheeks, pulling it all up into corners by the temples. Even the nose seems to be pulled higher, making use of those muscles freed by the eyebrow loss. These eyebrows are honest.

I am comfortable watching and sleeping. I am even comfortable with confusion, in as much as I have no particular sense of discomfort or shame when experiencing it. But what of these walls?

It may be the case that I have been experiencing this range of expression my entire life, never recognizing it for what it is. If this is so, there must be a stark disconnect between the way I understand myself to be and the way I am perceived by others. Up to this point, I would describe myself as a rather languid and level person; I have believed others would agree. But it could be that I am instead seen as a liar. I may have entertained countless conversations in which my face betrayed emotions that my words denied. This may be why I have only one friend.

On the other hand, it may be the case that I have only the potential to make these expressions, that my eyebrows are predators lying in wait. If this is the case, one day I will wake up with a stranger’s face. My expressions will be as jarring to others as they are to me. I may make the exaggerated expressions of a child, testing the limits of my expressions and their reception in social settings. But if my eyebrows suddenly switch on, my perspective will remain unchanged. My face will express things that I have not the emotional currency to support. This may prevent me from ever attracting another friend.

The therapist my mother sends me to is concerned about the photographs. At first, he was concerned that I had taken to spying on my mother, following her about and taking snapshots of her conducting her life. The unnatural interdependency between my mother and I had always worried him, he said. I explained that I continue to have no interest in my mother’s affairs. This generated quite a reaction from his eyebrows. I explained that the pictures were only of her eyebrows, that they were for study, and that they were all confined to the walls of my room. The therapist my mother sends me to then discussed, at great length, whether or not I felt my mother has an overbearing influence in my life.

I told him I am not concerned with my mother or her behavior. I am concerned with aspects of myself which are utterly beyond my control or hers, those things that are dictated by pedigree. There are countless choices to be made to divorce myself from my lineage. But not my eyebrows. Those will never be mine.

Credit Where It Is Due

2006-09-18T20:57:00.000-07:00

In my excitement over my first friend, and after revisiting my description of finding her, I realize that I did not adequately explain the circumstances that lead to our meeting that Friday on a public bus. I must confess, I did not make this discovery myself. My mother, of all people, is to thank.

Today, being a Monday, I engaged in my usual Monday routine: I rose at 7:15am; I procured the honey from the kitchen and left tiny droplets of honey rain throughout the hallway before mother's room; I made coffee that I would not drink; I went to the gardens behind the house and sat for a think. My mother sauntered out later in the morning, dressed in her favorite St. John's suit. We regarded each other as best we could. By that, I mean that I stared past my mother and at her shoes, searching for evidence of a honey-sole attack. I also mean that my mother stood four feet away from me and examined by countenance for evidence of an improved attitude.

"Harold, I do wish you would hurry along and get to your bookstore." My mother has a particular disdain for public libraries or libraries of any sort, for that matter; she claims that knowledge is best left to those who have earned their way to leisure time spent reading.

That my mother thought to ask why I wasn't heading to the library on a Monday morning made it evident to me that my routines, though habitual to me, may be something of a mystery to others. The therapist my mother sends me to congratulated me on my insight and empathy. I am of the opinion it is best to be clear and thorough when describing one's routines, so as to discourage others from imploring schedule changes.

On Friday, as per my routine, I took the public bus to the main branch of the public library. On Fridays at one o’clock in the afternoon, the librarian holds a story hour for children on the first floor. Every week, a group of ten to fifteen children gather around on an uncomfortable looking carpet and listen while the librarian reads to them. Mothers and nannies are sprinkled about, some listening to the story, others taking the opportunity to seek out their own reading material. There are always new faces at these story hours, but there are also a number of regular ones.

One such regular face is that of a boy who looks to be seven or eight at the most. This boy’s name is Thomas. I first became a regular observer of the Friday story hour because of Thomas. When I first happened upon Thomas, he was wearing a loudly patterned cable-knit sweater and dark corduroy pants. In all the times I have visited Friday story hour, Thomas has always been in attendance, sitting quietly and politely towards the back of the group. I have never seen any evidence that Thomas is accompanied by anyone on these Fridays.

The first Friday that I took note of the story hour, the librarian had just finished reading something like The Story of Ping; I only overheard the very end of the tale, but I am certain that it involved a duck. The story had only just ended, and children were milling about waiting to be claimed by their responsible parties. Only Thomas stood his ground, waiting for a path to clear to the librarian. He approached her as a lawyer might a witness on the stand.

“I have some questions about that story, please.” Only after having watched Thomas approach this woman countless times since then am I now able to identify why I was so fascinated by Thomas on that first afternoon. Thomas makes direct eye contact with the adults he addresses, a feat that I am not often able to accomplish myself.

The librarian, on that afternoon when I first saw Thomas, seemed accustomed to this line of questioning. She pursed a tight smile, a move that emphasized the fact that she has no smile wrinkles to speak of. Her mouth and its surrounding terrain are smooth as porcelain, as if she spent her life at library volume and has never partaken much in any sort of decisive emotion whatsoever. She sat down wearing the book as a shield and faced Thomas.

In all the weeks that I have been coming to the Friday story hour, I have seen this pattern play out again and again. Thomas listens intently to the story. The children leave. The librarian waits. Thomas begins his questioning. Thomas’ questions often surprise me, mostly because I know very little about children and their capacity for reason. Thomas will ask the librarian questions such as: Why would the duck choose to stray from his family and friends when he already knows that there is danger beyond his pond? Does it seem reasonable to you that the brave prince would spend twenty years seeking one of countless princesses in all the lands?

As much as I am impressed by these questions, the librarian always seems rather put out by having to answer them. If I could hazard a guess, I would suspect that Thomas’ parent or parents are scholarly types, possibly even professors of literature; if I could hazard another guess, I would suspect that the librarian majored in Library Science and not Literature precisely to avoid having to answer these sorts of questions about the books she so meticulously shelves.

Thomas is not my friend. He is only a boy whom I have grown to enjoy watching. But it is because of Thomas that I met my friend. Had it not been for Thomas and his persistent questioning, I would never have been on the bus that day, never would have seen the homeless TV Guide aficionado, and never would have met my friend. In a way, I owe a great deal to Thomas.

I have decided to honor Thomas in some small part of my own, a homage to he would brought about my first friendship. Today, I approached the gardener and looked him plainly in the face. I met his eyes, which I learned today are crusted about the corners and seem to crack along the surface for moisture. I met those Saharan eyes and bid him a fair day. Every other Monday when the gardener comes to visit our home, I will make a point of looking him plainly in the eyes and speaking to him.

While the gesture may be slight, it requires my utmost dedication, perseverance, and reverence. If friendships have their thorns, then this will my part towards pruning its hedges. Every other Monday now belongs to Thomas.

It might do me well to stop burying the skeletal remains of our roasted fowl dinners beneath the tulip bed.

Close Your Eyes and Think of Me

2006-09-12T23:53:00.000-07:00

I found my friend this Labor Day weekend.

I was riding the bus on Friday, taking my usual route to the library, to watch the children's story hour. Or, to be more precise, to watch a boy named Thomas question the librarian after the children's story hour. On the bus, there was an able-bodied homeless man who was sitting towards the front in a section clearly marked Handicapped Only. The man was reading a TV Guide and chuckling to himself with some regularity. The man was unquestionably homeless, but he wasn’t bothering anyone. He just sat, enjoying his TV Guide immensely.

I sat watching this man for several stops before I noticed the girl sitting ahead of me was also watching him. She seemed to enjoy watching this homeless man as much I was did. She turned and looked at me, shrugging.

“I could watch that man all day,” she said. Then she pulled the stop cord, got up, and hopped off the bus.

I was surprised to hear her make that comment because I had only just thought the same thing myself when she spoke. She was an adorable girl, not in a sexually attractive sense but in the utterly platonic sense. This girl was adorable the way a kitten or duckling might be adorable. She had a round face with tight dark curls hanging down just below her ears. Her eyes were small, squinted, and framed with dark eyelashes. She had an unnaturally wide mouth that made her smile take over her face. As she got up to leave the bus, I noticed she carried a worn shoulder bag that carried a equally worn journal with heavily crinkled pages; it was evident from only a glance that this journal had been thoroughly soaked at some point, but its owner had decided to let it dry and continue on. She was also wearing a plain, white tee shirt with a single word printed on it, in a simple black font.

YES.

My first thought was that the shirt might be a Yoko Ono reference. My second thought was that the period on her shirt made it complete, that the shirt would definitely be the lesser without the punctuation. I was so taken by this girl on the bus that I followed her off the bus, four stops from my destination at the library.

The longer I watched this girl, the more I enjoyed her. She was a tourist, that much was clear. She had a large folding map with exaggerated illustrations of the local points of interest. She frequently asked for clarification from the passing strangers on the street. I was most impressed that she seemed to experience no shame or hesitation with her tourism, freely displaying her map to all the world and approaching others as if they had been old friends. I envied her immediately.

After half an hour of walking about, she entered an Indian restaurant that boasted an all-you-can-eat buffet lunch for $7.99. The host tried to seat her by the front window, but she requested a table for one at the back end of the restaurant, right outside the kitchen, and out of the direct footpath of the buffet. I must admit that I was relieved she asked for the table away from the window. With her sitting at such a distance, I was able to watch her have lunch from the street, standing right outside the window. Had she been seated by the window, I would have had to have lunch at the restaurant myself and, I admit, I am a bit of a coward when it comes to foods I am unfamiliar with.

I am ashamed to admit that the foods that I am familiar with are primarily those that my mother has prepared for me or ordered for me at various dinner functions. These foods include, but are not exclusive to: prime rib, roast leg of lamb, potatoes au gratin, baked Alaska, rice pilaf, and Yorkshire pudding. Outside of these and similar culinary arenas, I have always felt the slightest sense of apprehension.

What delighted me most about this girl's lunch was simply that she watched her fellow diners. She helped herself to a plate from the buffet, then proceeded to nibble at it as she watched others. At first, she watched a heavy set man with a red face make his way through the buffet line, using two plates to accommodate his appetite. She had a look of serenity about her while she watched this man, vicariously enjoying his enjoyment of the all-you-can-eat buffet.

Next, she watched a young couple chat over their lunches. They seemed to talk seamlessly, one partner's dialog running without interruption into the other's. I could see the girl's eyes bounce back and forth between them, following the verbal volley. I am certain that she, like me, was amazed that there are those people in the world, those people who have found the way to take jarring and halting stops out of conversations.

She ate only half her lunch, left a cash tip on the table, and came back out onto the street. She walked right past me, taking luxurious breaths of the afternoon air and walking down the block. The girl has an unusual gait that I had trouble defining at first. But as we walked through the downtown area, I realized that her shoes were too large for her feet, creating something of a floppy clown's walk.

I was elated when she turned towards and then entered the main branch of the public library. Not only was I following the most intriguing person I have come across in all my life, but she was heading to my favorite Friday afternoon haunt.

As we crossed the lobby, I could see that the children's story hour was wrapping up. Without a second thought, I followed the girl up to the second floor where the periodicals are kept. She walked briskly up and down the aisles of Recent Periodicals and swept up a copy of The New Yorker with her left hand without missing a step. She gave the distinct impression that she had come to the library with no agenda whatsoever but to pick up an interesting read and enjoy the afternoon; simultaneously, she also gave off the distinct impression that, while she was a tourist to this library, she had no doubt she would find her periodical of choice effortlessly. She made her way to the cushioned armchairs near the second floor windows, kicked off her over-sized shoes, and nestled down to read her magazine.

My mother has always held a firm stance on The New Yorker. It is her view that news magazines, by and large, are vulgar and editorial. However, a news magazine that fills its pages with fiction and cartoons clearly does not spend sufficient energy gathering the news before going to press.

Once, at a dinner party, my mother made this very point and another guest argued that The New Yorker provided the world's news in its larger cultural context, each issue acting as a reflection of the Western sentiment as a whole. Mother said nothing, but never invited that man to dinner again, claiming he was an Exeter mind in a Harvard suit.

The therapist my mother sends me to asked me what I thought mother meant by that comment. I advised him to never pursue that line of questioning with my mother.

That afternoon at the library, I sat at a study table watching this girl read. She would stop every so often, gazing out the window to the concourse level, then jot a few notes in her water-damaged journal, then continue reading. We were there for over an hour before I decided to approach her. First, I waited for a moment after she'd finished her jotting but before she moved back to reading; I know I would prefer to meet a friend when I was not in mid-thought.

"Is that a Yoko Ono reference?" I spoke at a regular volume and startled her, to say nothing of the irritated and shushing patrons.

"I'm sorry?"

"Is your shirt a reference to the Yoko Ono ceiling? The one with the ladder you climbed up all the way to the ceiling, to read only 'YES'?"

The girl smiled and tucked her feet under her body on the chair.

"Right now," she said, "that is what it means. By tomorrow, of course, it may be something entirely different." She smiled at me again.

"Harold," I offered.

"It may mean something very different tomorrow then, Harold. That's why I love this shirt."

She went back to reading The New Yorker. I took the bus home.

The therapist my mother sends me to was quick to point out that I may never see this girl again, that I failed to initiate a relationship because I did not sit and talk with her. I told him friends often drop each other quick notes or calls just to keep in touch. I pointed out that companies like Hallmark have made their empires on it. Friendship, I told him, should not be measured by the length of its conversations.

The therapist my mother sends me to pointed out that I failed to get her number or address, so my seeing her again is subject utterly to chance. I told him that many friends go years without seeing each other or communicating at all, but remain friends. In fact, all of my mother's closest and lifelong friends are those whom she sees most infrequently. He thought the better of commenting on that point. I could tell.

I told my therapist that as far as I'm concerned, and my concerns are the only concerns that concern me and ought to be the only concerns which concern him when he is working with me, a friend is someone with common interests, who challenges you to act outside of your routine, and whom you think of with some regularity and fondness. My concern with finding a friend was the only concern I came to him with. This girl and I meet all of these criteria to my mind. We both watch people. She got me to alter my Friday afternoon routine. She will think of me when she wears that shirt because I spoke to her, and I will think of her at the library because she spoke to me. This girl and I, I told my therapist, are friends.

The therapist my mother sends me to told me this girl could not be my friend because I do not even know her name.

I took a taxi home and thought about my first friend.

I Have Lost an Idea

2006-08-29T17:31:00.000-07:00

All last week I was plagued with a recurring nightmare.

The first evening of the nightmare, I had been listening to Joni Mitchell’s Blue album. I am quite fond of this album; my mother detests it as my penchant for eras I never experienced. As I listened, my ear caught a particular line.

When I think of your kisses, my mind see-saws.

That lyric rang out so clearly to my ears that evening in a way it had never done before. I think it was all the more particular to my mind because I had, up until that moment in the lounge, believed the line to be –

When I think of your kisses, my mind sees stars.

After hearing this line for the first time, for what it is, I also had the first occurrence of my nightmare.

I am unaccustomed to fitful sleep. I have always, as a rule, enjoyed the average eight hours of sleep each evening. I have, over the years, developed something of a bedtime ritual. I begin by taking a hot shower, making sure to both shampoo and condition my hair. I take extra care to lather my underarms as I am disgusted by my armpit's ability to accumulate deodorant clumps; these small white masses have a manner of metastasizing and becoming hopelessly bonded to my underarm hair. I typically pee in the shower as well; in truth, I feel as if I have skipped a step on those evenings when I do not need to. I also brush my teeth in the shower, but more for convenience than a sense of habit. Unlike with urinating, I would still feel a sense of completion if I were to brush my teeth out of sequence.

This ritual is important to me because I enjoy the feel of clean sheets as I fall asleep. The highlight of travel with my mother is hotel sheets. They are always pristine, crisp, and industrially clean. Taking a shower just before bed helps me to keep my sheets as fresh as possible.

The therapist my mother sends me to asked why I don't simply change my sheets daily. I told my therapist that I have been banned from approaching the laundry machine after an incident with a number of mother's table linens and gelatin. I told my therapist that I have also been banned from making undue work requests from our housemaid because, as mother describes her, she is an unfortunately constructed woman on the brink of the lower class. I told my therapist that, in light of my mother's edicts, I thought it wise to limit myself to changing my bed linens only once a week until such time as we have a more sightly housemaid.

In the meantime, I explained, I recognize my evening bathing ritual.

On the night of Blue anew, I was able to complete my bathing ritual, but was distracted by a lingering sense of shock.

The therapist my mother sends me to asked me what was so shocking about the shift from seeing stars to see-saws. I told him that it likely made quite a difference to an astronomer or a child.

Each night I would wake from my nightmare entirely dampened. I would refer to it as having a cold sweat except that there was nothing cold about it. I would wake each night in such a humid state that I would need to get out of bed and stand with my limbs akimbo and swinging to cool myself. My hair along the scalp would be wet, giving my hair an athlete's volume as he breaks a sweat. The back of my pajamas would feel thin as the fabric clung to my skin. Worst of all, there would be a damp imprint on my linens and pillow as if a great anthropomorphic sponge had been laid and pressed onto my bed.

The therapist my mother sends me to asked me to describe what happens in the nightmare. I told him that I wasn't upset about the nightmare. I was upset about the state of my bed after the nightmare. I asked him if he knew of any methods to make the effects of nightmares less destructive on one's laundry and linens; after all, I am uncertain of what brought on this recurrent nightmare, but I would like to be prepared if it is to recur again. He told me that it would be necessary to analyze the contents of the nightmare if I was ever to understand why it caused me such troubled sleep. To sleep, he said. To sleep, perchance to dream. Aye there's the rub.

I reminded my therapist that Hamlet was speaking of death, not nightmares. In any case, I failed to see how discussing the electrical impulses of my brain would prevent them from causing such violent sweating.

We spent the rest of the session identifying Rorschach blotches.

I have always loved Joni Mitchell's Blue. I have loved it from the first time I came across the record at a small flea market near a farmer's market where my mother was searching for a particular type of honey that is meant to bring renewed luster to the skin. But, more to the point, I have always understood what I meant in saying that I loved Joni Mitchell's Blue.

I have loved Joni Mitchell's Blue the same way I have loved funeral processions, loved the smell of tension in a room after the meeting of a deadline, loved Magritte's Empire of Light, loved cornbread. For each of these things, I have enjoyed their strengths and weaknesses, neither celebrating those things that made them superior nor castigating those things that made them inferior. What is the good of emphasizing that perfect way that cornbread absorbs butter, only to turn about and criticize the way it disintegrates at the slightest nudge? These are both characteristics of cornbread and, so, reasons to love cornbread.

I have always comfortably loved things because of their entirety. Perhaps this is why there are so few people whom I love, the proclivities of people being so less suited for balance. Their motives and abilities are so much more difficult to understand, to even ascertain.

But this shift from

When I think of your kisses, my mind sees stars

When I think of your kisses, my mind see-saws

changes everything about loving.

See-saws are unstable. It is their nature. If the mind see-saws, it becomes this teetering thing, capable of anything. Kisses may lead to laughter, to embitterment. It would all depend on the weight of the players on either end. And what of days when a player has had a large lunch?

The therapist my mother sends me to told me that my interest in this lyrical shift is merely a diversion. I asked him what he felt I was trying to divert attention from. My therapist told me that that was precisely the question he wanted me to answer.

I think the therapist my mother sends me to may be something of a lazy thinker.

In my nightmare, I have finally found my friend. We are on the dirt track of a dog racing course. My friend takes the place of the rabbit on a track at dog races, but I am cemented to the starting line. As my friend races away, I am forced to watch as he slowly grows smaller with distance. Then, when he is out of sight, I must wait for him to come up again behind me. I cannot seem to even turn my head to anticipate his approach. I am forced to stare straight ahead, as if awaiting the starter’s gun, and wait for my friend to pass through my field of vision again.

An Unreliable Narrator

2006-08-21T23:14:00.000-07:00

While last week I lacked imagination, this week I possess it in abundance.

This, at least, is the position of the therapist my mother sends me to. The two of them held some sort of forum together, a parent-analyst conference. The topic of discussion: Harold’s Progress. Despite a number of protestations from my therapist, my mother assured him that her complaints regarding my progress would remain strictly beyond the confines of my therapeutic sessions; and, afterall, she was paying for these little chats.

According to my mother, my therapist feels that I am a liar and that my inability to tell him the details of my life accurately is the only blockage between my current state and psychological wellness.

According to my therapist, my mother is concerned with my interpretations of everyday events and that she would like our therapeutic sessions to focus on these issues for the next month or so.

I await the pending judgment as to whether or not my previous description of their meeting qualifies as a lie or as a misinterpretation.

In either case, the therapist my mother sends me to focused our entire session this afternoon on the nature of truthfulness. He explained to me that, in general, truthfulness is regarded as presenting an accurate representation of events or beliefs to another. He added that there are, of course, matters of perspective such as explaining one’s side in an argument. However, beyond these exceptions, truthful representations of events is generally an easily agreed upon matter. I asked how, then, truthfulness is to be determined in the case of arguments. The therapist my mother sends me to said that I shouldn't focus on these exceptional cases. But, I told him, disagreements are a fairly common exception.

I am fairly certain that the therapist my mother sends me to ended our exception with a request to continue this line of questioning with my mother; it was hard to be sure as he muttered to himself and made a note in my file.

Getting back to the point, my therapist began again, truthfulness is an easy state to achieve. As a simple demonstration, he asked me to describe his desk.

I have spent many hours examining the desk of the therapist my mother sends me to. There is no couch or comfortable armchair. There is a moderately uncomfortable mahogany colored chair for the patient that sits just out of arm's reach of the desk's edge. This distance has always made examining the details of smaller or obliquely-angled objects more difficult. I began my description.

The desk is sturdy and broad, made of a real, dark wood, I told him. All of its legs have been raised by several inches by lifts, giving the desk a more authoritative presence in the room. The high back, burgundy leather chair is also elevated to its maximum height, a fact that is evidenced by its slow but audible exhale when my therapist sits down. Together, the effect is to make my therapist seem more ominous and established presence at his desk than when meeting him standing up.

The therapist my mother sends me to interrupted me, instructing me to actually describe the desk. For instance, he suggested, what was on his desktop.

Beginning again, I described the landscape of the desk's surface. A computer monitor sat at a forty-five degree angle on the left corner of the surface. The screensaver was always running its photo slideshow whenever I had been in his office, but I had noticed that all of the images were of famous works of art. Also, I added, these images were all clearly labeled Christie's and, therefore, downloaded from the internet. At the opposite corner of the desk is my therapist's coffee mug. I have never seen him drink from it, but it is a fixture of the desk landscape. It is a glass mug with the emblem of the American Psychological Association etched into it.

The therapist my mother sends me to let his pen drop onto the desktop and began to rub his temples. Despite my best efforts to describe his desk, my therapist informed me that he has a simple mahogany desk set with a computer monitor, papers, and coffee sitting on it. I asked if it shouldn't be 'setting' on it, but he did not answer. He told me that my muddled description of his desk was untruthful because it was made up almost entirely on my own conjecture and contained very little fact.

I told him I think we have different understandings of what it means to be truthful. He asked if I thought it was possible to have different meanings of truthful. I told him I obviously did believe it was possible because I believe it is the case between us. The therapist my mother sends me to only sighed and motioned for me to continue.

I told him that I believe that truthfulness can be in seeing the meaning in things without regard for their labels. By way of example, I asked my therapist if he had ever read the poem Ballad of Orange and Grape by Muriel Rukeyser. He said he had not. This, I told him was likely the reason why we have different understandings of what it means to be truthful.

My therapist said that truthfulness is not decided by poetry, but by accuracy. My description of his desk was untruthful because it was laden with all of my interpretations and assumptions about him, giving an outside listener a wrong understanding of his desk. His own description, on the other hand, was accurate and factual, detailing the objects on and around his desk so that any man on the street might recognize this office from a photo array. His description was truthful because it was specific and unbiased; my description was untruthful because it was vague and subjective.

I mentioned that my description in no way implied some sort of conscious effort, that I was in no way suggesting that he had consciously tried to make his office communicate these sorts of messages. The therapist my mother sends me to told me that all this had been enough for the day and said he would see me next week.

I still do not understand what was wrong with my description. Why is it untruthful when the desk of a therapist, a healer, is designed to bolster only the man who sits behind it and not the one who sits before it? Why is it truthful to describe the objects in the office, which are not particularly dissimilar from any other office in the world, without giving notice to those aspects of the office which make them uniquely owned?

The therapist my mother sends me to has implied that there is something wrong with the way I see the world. This is precisely why my mother sent me to him in the first place. It would appear I've made little to no progress over these many months. At least my therapist already has a topic to discuss at the next progress meeting.

I still believe a friend would help, a friend who believes in the difference between orange and grape.

Ballad of Orange and Grape
Muriel Rukeyser
After you finish your work
after you do your day
after you've read your reading
after you've written your say -
you go down the street to the hot dog stand,
one block down and across the way.
On a blistering afternoon in East Harlem in the twentieth century.
Most of the windows are boarded up,
the rats run out of a sack -
sticking out of the crummy garage
one shiny long Cadillac;
at the glass door of the drug-addiction center,
a man who'd like to break your back.
But here's a brown woman with a little girl dressed in rose and pink, too.
Frankfurters frankfurters sizzle on the steel
where the hot-dog-man leans -
nothing else on the counter
but the usual two machines,
the grape one, empty, and the orange one, empty,
I face him in between.
A black boy comes along, looks at the hot dogs, goes on walking.
I watch the man as he stands and pours
in the familiar shape
bright purple in the one marked ORANGE,
orange in the one marked GRAPE,
the grape drink in the machine marked ORANGE
and orange drink in the GRAPE
Just the one word large and clear, unmistakable, on each machine.

I ask him: How can we go on reading
and make sense out of what we read? -
How can they write and believe what they're writing,
the young ones across the street,
while you go on pouring grape into ORANGE
and orange into the one marked GRAPE - ?
(How are we going to believe what we read and we write and we hear and we say and we do?)
He looks at the two machines and he smiles
and he shrugs and smiles and pours again.
It could be violence and nonviolence
it could be white and black women and men
it could be war and peace or any
binary system, love and hate, enemy, friend.
Yes and no, be and not-be, what we do and what we don't do.
On a corner in East Harlem
garbage, reading, a deep smile, rape,
forgetfulness, a hot street of murder,
misery, withered hope,
a man keeps pouring grape into ORANGE
and orange into the one marked GRAPE,
pouring orange into GRAPE and grape into ORANGE forever.
(1973)

Some Experience Required

2006-08-15T12:54:00.000-07:00

The therapist my mother sends me to recently returned from his annual family vacation. This year he, his wife of sixteen years, and their twelve-year-old son elected to take a ten day cruise to Mexico. Aboard the ship, my therapist informs me, all earthly pleasure are gratis. Buffets are available at all hours; movies are screened in a variety of locations; games and dancing are arranged in yet other locations; pools are available at all times, despite the fact that all passengers are, in fact, floating amidst giant open seas; and, for the single or those less scrupulous married types, buffets of the carnal sort are also plentiful and unending. The therapist my mother sends me to gave me a knowing eyebrow lift at this last point of description. Unsure of what I was also supposed to know in regards to cruise line carnal buffets, I asked my therapist if he was one of those unscrupulous married types. He snorted and assured me that he was not. But, he insisted, I can imagine what he meant.

I am afraid that the therapist my mother sends me to believes I have an active imagination.

This fear extends beyond simply imagining the forgone temptations of extramarital affairs. For as much time as I spend watching the interactions of people, I have never been able to imagine with any clarity what these people are like when not in my immediate sight. Today, I saw a magnificent old man standing outside of a gas station. He wore terribly worn leather shoes, ones whose color had faded in the creases atop his feet where his toes begin. He wore old slacks, ones that he clearly patched himself along the cuff because the patches were threadbare and of a mismatched hue. Despite being summer, the old man wore a comfortable looking blue cardigan sweater, one with a hole torn in the lower right side. This hole was undoubtedly caused by the small, jumping dog at his side. I know very little about dogs and even less about their breeds. However, if Snoopy were a real dog but only longer in the body, I think it would have been fairly close to this old man's dog, Doodle. In truth, the dog's name was Yankee Doodle Dandy, but I would only learn that later on.

I had stopped into the gas station for a cheap rotisserie hot dog because it had occurred to me that I had never had one. As I walked out of the gas station, the old man was allowing Doodle to leave a small deposit of turd on the small patch of grass near the air/water station. The man had his back to the dog, speaking to it without turning to look directly at the dog, cooing, "Go on now, Doodle. Make your poopie."

The dog was evidently oblivious to the man's encouragements, only walking in slow circles about the grass. I watched the exchange with some interest. For one thing, I have never had a pet. My mother would never allow any sort of animal in the house. I had asked her once for a cat.

"Harold, please. Cats have a way of getting into everything. It is bad enough I have you snooping about without actually acquiring another pair of eyes."

I had asked her once for a bird. Nothing as elaborate as a parrot or cockatoo, only a small canary or pair of love birds.

"Have you any idea that birds chirp, Harold? They are not the silent beasts of beauty as they appear in tapestries. Could you imagine how badly you would feel with your birds chirping while Mother had one of her headaches? Can you imagine, Harold?"

Unfortunately, I could not. As I've said, I have never had a talent for imagination.

In any case, my never having had a pet has always caused me to take great pause in watching others interact with animals in a meaningful way. Another thing that made the relationship between the old man and Doodle so interesting was that the basis of their relationship appeared to be something of a life. The old man believed that he needed to coax his dog into doing its biological functions, that the dog needed him in some sense beyond the basic necessities of life, as if the dog needed him emotionally, psychologically. And, in return, Doodle seemed to regard the old man as little more than a great moving bumper, a thing that would block oncoming feet from encroaching on its space.

As I watched the old man talk and Doodle circle, Doodle took note of me. More accurately, I believe that Doodle took note of the hot dog I was eating. I would have never believed that such a small dog could have leapt as far as Doodle did if I had not been its landing pad. I lay flat out on the sidewalk, with the dog happily eating on my chest. Nearby, I heard a group of teenagers laughing at the predicament. The old man made his way over in a manner that suggested his dog was prone to such leaps and they were nothing to be overly concerned with. I lay motionless, waiting for the dog to finish its meal. His small metal name tag was shaped like an American flag. The name, proudly printed along one of the flag's long stripes, read: YANKEE DOODLE DANDY.

The old man approached and called his dog. Doodle, finished with the hot dog, sprung off my torso and returned to his master. The old man nodded an apology and began to walk his dog home.

Beyond this incident, I cannot imagine what this man and his dog are like. The therapist my mother sends me to asked me if I was upset that the man had not given me a more formal apology or, at the very least, a verbal one. I told him that I had been more scared of the dog than I had been outraged; I saw no reason why someone should apologize for my feeling scared. My therapist told me that, had he been in my place, he would have felt outraged for being accosted by a stranger's dog and would have felt an apology was in order. He asked me if I imagined that the old man let his dog jump on strangers all the time. It was then that I admitted to my therapist that I could not imagine the man beyond the circumstances I had seen him in. My therapist felt that I was being uncooperative. He asked me to imagine what sort of behaviors might be tolerated at home if jumping on strangers was tolerated in public. I told him that I had no way of imagining what life might be like for the old man.

I can imagine a simple, small house; in truth, I only picture the home of my father's deceased aunt. I can imagine a dirty apartment; in truth, I only picture an apartment I saw in a television show once. I can imagine a house of some size and grandeur; in truth, I only picture our home or the homes of one of my mother's friends. But, no matter how much detail I can pictures these locations, they are only memories of places, and I cannot imagine the old man and his dog into these settings. It is a thought experiment that I fail at, over and over.

The therapist my mother sends me to asked me if I thought I had been encouraged not to use my imagination in my childhood. I told him I felt that I had never learned how to use my imagination as a child. This answer seemed to vex my therapist for a moment, and I could see that he was deliberating how to proceed. He told me that the imagination was not something that one needed to be taught how to use, that the imagination was simply a faculty of the mind, one of the most fundamental faculties of the mind. In fact, he continued, I probably imagined things all the time and failed to recognize it. Any time I have daydreamed, problem-solved, planned for the future, even fantasized about death, all of these were instances in which I was imagining. That I felt I could not imagine things on command was merely a lack of confidence and practice.

I have been thinking a great deal about what my therapist said to me about imagination. For all that he assured me that I have been using my imagination all along, I am fairly certain that I have not. I cannot recall ever daydreaming. If I were ever given to moments of thoughtful reverie, mother would likely never have sent me to the therapist in the first place. Also, I have virtually no problem-solving skills. I admit this with a modicum of shame, but the truth is that mother has always solved problems before they became problems. Once I arrived at my therapist's office for my regular appointment, but had missed the phone message at home that my therapist was ill and could not make my appointment. This might have been a problem; indeed, later that afternoon, mother assured me that it would have been an incredible problem of logistics and timing to get me home. However, mother had intercepted the phone message on my behalf and sent a taxi to collect me as soon as I arrived at the office.

I've heard a great deal of talk about My Future from mother, the therapist she sends me to, her friends, family. Yet, in all this talk, I have never actually pictured that future in my mind's eye. I can no more imagine myself ten years older than I can make myself ten years younger. I can in no way imagine myself in any sort of profession, only because I have never had any sort of job or responsibility to speak of to date. What would I do? When would I wake in the morning? What sort of clothes would I wear? Would I have to wear my hair with a part? And would there also be cologne?

Can I imagine these possibilities? No. I can picture people I've seen in professions, getting ready for jobs, applying deodorant. I remember being a child and watching my uncle get ready for work in the morning. As a child, my uncle seemed to be the most powerful man in the world. He began by putting on a pair of boxer shorts, followed by well-pressed suit pants, navy blue. He would then put on a white undershirt before selecting a dress shirt. Most of his dress shirts had vertical stripes, all barely visible. He would tuck in his shirts and then select a belt. He had a mirrored cabinet filled with hundreds of small bottles of cologne and aftershave. Though he wore a different one every day, he always reached immediately and without hesitation into the cabinet and retrieve a bottle, as if he had a schedule of his scents and was merely playing it out each morning. I can see every step in his morning ritual, but can in no way replace his body for my own, his face with mine.

Even my interest in death is, so far as I'm concerned, completely unaided by imagination. If I was able to imagine the many ways in which death can interrupt a life, I would not need to enact them. Again, I feel that if I were truly able to use my imagination regarding my interest in death, mother would have never sent me to the therapist. For instance, when I enacted my drowning, I simply could not imagine the feeling of losing consciousness due to the inability to breathe. I had, of course, held my breath until losing consciousness before and could remember the sensation. However, that is different from drowning. When willfully holding one's breath, it becomes necessary to battle the will to breathe, to create a mantra of determination to hold out until the point of unconsciousness. But, in the case of drowning, there is no choice, no mantra. If one falters and decides to breathe, the lungs are only greeted by fluid. I could not imagine what that would feel like, at that moment when you might choose to forego the experience and not being able to. And, not being able to imagine it, I enacted it.

I will have to ask the therapist my mother sends me to whether or not, sometimes, fundamental things must be learned.

And If I Don't Want to Ride the Ride?

2006-07-09T22:48:00.000-07:00

First, I must apologize for my long hiatus. While the therapist my mother sends me to feels that these little chronicles are beneficial to our work, he felt a triste to the Continent would be more so. I pointed out to him that such a vacation with mother might cause damage equal to several years of additional therapy. As such, I told him I had to find his recommendation a bit suspect. He responded to my concerns by opening my file and asking me about my dreams of late.

My dreams, of late, have been unimpressive.

Transatlantic travel with mother is always typified by three things: mother's use of my checkable luggage space, savory crepes every morning for breakfast while in France, and my rental of a bicycle while everywhere else.

Mother always asks why I don't want a bicycle at home. I told her that I cannot live La Dolce Vita at home. Mother told me only I could live a life so dreary that its wild side would only venture into bicycle rides. The therapist my mother sends me to asked how I felt about that comment. I told him I wished my mother could appreciate cinema as much as her college Italian course.

He did not laugh either.

The therapist my mother sends me to insisted that surely something of merit happened in my months abroad. I asked why it was surely so. I told him that surely people take uneventful vacations. Surely, I said, such vacations were the source of bad vacations. My therapist sighed until I recounted a story.

The only event of interest to occur during my time in Europe occurred at the American embassy in Italy. I had somehow misplaced my passport en route from Paris.

"What a shame you'll miss luncheon, Harold. I'll see you at the hotel this evening," Mother said. Mother only ever references the places that she visits in a day. My visit to the embassy was implied.

On my way out of the embassy, I paused against the outer gate, watching pedestrians shuffle by on the sidewalk. In particular, I was engaged by a small boy across the street. He looked to be six or seven, but he was dressed in an infant's dressing gown that was meant to look like a navy sailors' suit.

"Poor kid. Thank Christ he's too young to feel real shame."

There was no question the girl talking to me was American. More than her accent, she was dressed in blue jeans and a ratty tee-shirt which advertised STICK AROUND - I'M LOADED.

"I was thinking that outfit is probably quite comfortable," I mused.

The girl snorted and called out across the street, "Hey kid! Get off the merry-go-round! Runaway while you still can!" She seemed quite satisfied with her commentary and grinned at me. I looked at her for awhile. It was clear that she anticipated some sort of reply from me.

Unfortunately for her, I had nothing to say at the moment and merely looked back at her. She gave a smile and sigh.

"Are you Peter?"

The therapist my mother sends me to asked why I lied and agreed that I was, indeed, Peter. I told him I was lonely. My therapist said that loneliness would certainly explain wanting to talk to a pretty girl. Loneliness, however, would not explain my employment of deception to talk to a pretty girl. The therapist my mother sends me to explained that loneliness is not pathology, but lying is pathology. My therapist said that if it were true that I acted only out of loneliness with the girl, I could have simply introduced myself honestly.

I told my therapist that he has never been honestly lonely.

The girl, whose name was Sarah-Marie Parker-Williams, had evidently planned to meet Peter, the cousin of a friend, in front of the American embassy that afternoon. After agreeing that I was the sought-after Peter, we made our way across town to Piazza San Marco, a touristy area that Sarah-Marie had marked in her "Europe for Dummies." She mentioned several times that she would "totally love some coffee and biscotti." I told her that I had never considered that one could entirely love coffee and biscotti. She laughed that polite laugh that I hear from mother's friends at dinner parties, that polite laugh that people use to fill awkward silences and cover awkward utterances.

We found a small cafe and approached the counter. It was a long, clear display case filled with cookies and confections. I have never been much of a fan of sweets, but a hot espresso sounded agreeable.

The therapist my mother sends me to asked why I would go to a cafe if I didn't want to go to a cafe. I reminded him that I do not have a sweet tooth, not that I dislike cafes on principle. He replied that that was fair enough, but he blushed.

If I were him, I wouldn't have been listening carefully to my story, either.

"Una cafe and una biscotti, por favora," Sarah-Marie announced to the clerk behind the case. I could see that he was unimpressed. He nodded disgustedly to a co-worker at the espresso machine.

"Quale biscotti?"

Sarah-Marie nodded with exaggeration. "Si, biscotti." I considered stepping in, but did nothing.

The clerk gestured to the bakery case with equal exaggeration. "Si, quale biscotti?" Then he turned and murmured something to his co-workers that my Italian could not decipher. It certainly sounded derisive, though.

Sarah-Marie pressed her fingers to the glass and pointed. "This one, asshole. A biscotti."

I do not know if the clerk spoke English, but he certainly understood the venom in "asshole."

I followed Sarah-Marie, her espresso, and her biscotti to a table outside. She dropped herself into a chair and pulled another over from a nearby table for her bag.

"'Biscotti' means 'cookie,'" I offered.

"He probably fucks around on his wife," she countered.

As the afternoon progressed, I learned a great deal about the sort of Peter I was supposed to be. Peter is in his first year at graduate school, doing a semester of research in Italy. Something about history, evidentially.

The therapist my mother sends me to asked if I found it difficult to maintain the deception that I was Peter. I told him that it was fairly easy, seeing as Sarah-Marie did the majority of the talking and only asked close-ended questions. My therapist asked if I had wished I had had the opportunity to try on the role of Peter more, to talk more as Peter that afternoon. I told my therapist that I felt I had tried on the role of Peter quite enough, that I assume that Sarah-Marie would have been as loquacious with the real Peter as well. My therapist asked if I thought my mother would have liked my being out with Sarah-Marie that afternoon. I told my therapist that my mother would have described Sarah-Marie as the sort of conversationalist that can only be silenced through violence or alcohol.

Sarah-Marie was what my mother would call vapid, but pretty enough to get by in life. She was blonde, though my mother would point out that she is not naturally so. We were about the same height; I am short for my age, a fact Sarah-Marie was quick to point out.

"You're a nice guy and stuff, Peter. But I just want to put it out there that we cannot hook up, ok? I'm not trying to be rude, you know? I'm just putting it out there."

Sarah-Marie raised her hand a good foot over her head and pursed her lips.

"You have to be at least this high to ride this ride, ok?"

I walked her to her youth hostel without incident and met mother for dinner.

The therapist my mother sends me to seems to feel that the most important aspect of this story pivots on whether or not I was sexually attracted to Sarah-Marie. I told him he was missing the point, not that I knew what the point was. I was, however, certain that it had nothing to do with sex. Not everything, after all, is Freudian. My therapist indicated that my beginning the story with an emasculated boychild in a sailor suit and ending it with an outright sexual rejection seemed sufficiently Freudian to him. He then indicated that he is, after all, a therapist.

It seems to me that one cannot be rejected if one has failed to advance in the first place, and I felt having my psyche judged on the basis of coincidental encounters with children seemed a haphazard way to conduct psychological medicine.

Had the therapist my mother sends me to not indicated the end of our session, I would have told him as much.

It is comfortable being home again.

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

2006-03-17T17:14:00.000-07:00

My aunt has passed. That's how mother instructed me to describe it to others. In truth, the woman was not my aunt. She was my father's aunt. I never knew her in life, though she sent me Hallmark cards, always Hallmark, on all major holidays for the duration of my life up to the present. Lest her estate specify that I should continue to receive these postal niceities, I expect I have received my last Hallmark card.

That I never met the woman in life is entirely the fault of mother. Mother has always preferred not to speak of father, nor to speak of his family. The therapist my mother sends me to told me that, if I am curious about my father and my father's heritage, I ought to simply ask mother to elaborate. I told my therapist that this seemed like an unwise decision, that mother likely has her own reasons for not discussing father in much detail. My therapist asked if I thought that this was reason enough to never know about half of my family, half of where I come from, half of the lump sum of all the experiences, knowledge, love and hate that brought me into existence. I told him I did think it was sufficient reason, that he had never seen mother bellow when asked to discuss things that she would rather not discuss.

Prior to my father's aunt's death, mother had only ever mentioned her to me once that I can recollect. In my youth, I asked mother who it was that sent me Hallmark cards on the major holidays. I asked because these were the only cards I ever received, that I have ever received. Moreover, these cards were always filled with the script of an elderly woman, always wishing me great growth, maturity, and fun with my schoolwork. Mother explained that the woman was father's aunt. She was quite old and lived in Minnesota. I asked if I would ever meet her, and mother said it was rather unlikely.

"Harold, she is a decent enough woman. But she is simply.....N.O.O.C.."

Here, the therapist my mother sends me to interrupted, asking what "N.O.O.C." means.

Not. Of. Our. Class.

With regards to travel, this would indicate that we would be invited to sleep on a couch or, worse, an air bed on a floor somewhere, mother explained. The poor woman would not even suggest a hotel to make us more comfortable. I asked mother if this meant that N.O.O.C. meant that she particularly wanted us to be uncomfortable.

"Don't be stupid, Harold," mother told me.

Over the years, I have come to understand that being N.O.O.C. has other implications beyond travel arrangements and accomodations. With regards to dining, it involves a great deal of convenience food and chicken. With regards to outings, it involves strip malls and discount warehouses. With regards to entertainment, it involves a complete disregard for the theatre, opera, and museums. Here, I objected and reminded mother that we often saw large groups of children at these locations on school field trips. This reminded mother of another N.O.O.C. characteristic: public schools raising their children.

My therapist asked me why it was that mother and I went to visit the home of my father's recently departed aunt in Minnesota, in light of mother's generally strict adherence to the N.O.O.C. travel veto. I was unable to provide a sufficient answer because, in truth, I have little grasp of the situation myself. The phone rang, and I answered. I could tell immediately that it was either a first-time caller or a wrong number.

"How could you possibly have known that, Harold," asked the therapist my mother sends me to.

"Because I answered, gasping, 'Please....help....I...I've...I seem to have cut myself...deep....quite deep...I've changed my mind...please, send help...' "

The man on the phone line seemed genuinely concerned, asking where I was in the house and whether or not I had removed my shirt to act as a bandage. This is how I knew he had never called our home before.

Mother snatched the phone away from me and apologized to the man, indicating that I was just being theatrical and would be just fine. Mother listened to the man on the phone, nodding as if to goad him on. When she spoke, she covered the phone receiver with her cupped hand, sliding her eyes over to me, watching my watching. Two days later we were on a plane to Minnesota.

Being an uninteresting sort, my therapist pointed out that we headed to Minnesota for my father's aunt's funeral, that the phone call had been a family member or friend or possibly even a lawyer informing mother of the situation. I told him this was a terrible interjection for the sake of dramatic tension in my storytelling. My therapist told me that our conversations were meant to be therapeutic, not dramatic.

Upon arriving in Minnesota, mother and I were picked up by a middle-aged woman with half inch salt-and-pepper roots sprouting beneath a cloud of curled red straw. She drove a faded green Chevrolet with comforters lining the entire backseat. She explained that she had gone into labor not once, not twice, but three times in that very backseat, all boys and all healthy as the Lord meant them to be.

Mother insisted that all three of us fit into the front seat.

My father's aunt's house is a small, tidy place with yellow painted walls. From the decor, I could tell that she was fond of cherubs. From the pictures, I could tell that she was fond of fashion. In every picture of my father's aunt, she was wearing a clearly preconceived outfit with matching shoes and purse. In every photo, the shoes matched her purse precisely. I wandered the house and looked at every photograph, every album, every snapshot. In each photo, there were matching shoes and purses. The face changed often - here smiling, here tired, here playing angry at the cameraman for catching her unawares. The scenery changed often - here a kitchen, here a park, here outside some monument to history that is only important to the tourists of the world. No matter the age, weather, or circumstance, this woman always had matching shoes and purse.

I made my way upstairs where mother was orchestrating a mass cleansing of my father's aunt's previous things. Mother had a group of women in the linen closet, directing towels into one box, while sheets went to another, and quilts into yet another box altogether.

My therapist interrupted me here, asking whether or not I thought mother had a tendency to take over situations. I told my therapist that he ought to ask my mother whether or not she had a tendency to take over situations.

I went into my father's aunt's bedroom and opened her closet. Hanging in even rows were all the outfits I had seen in the photos. My father's aunt arranged her closet by length and then color. First, short sleeved blouses, starting with the reds, then pinks, then oranges, then yellows, and so on down the rainbow spectrum. Patterned blouses were inserted by their predominant color. Next came the long sleeved blouses, again in color order. Then came short skirts; the woman evidentally owned not a single set of shorts. Then came long skirts and a brief assortment of slacks.

Along the top shelf of the closet, I could see a long row of hats. These hats were clearly purchased for funcationality and not style. There was a wide-brimmed red hat, presumably for ladies' luncheons. There was a floppy straw hat, presumably for afternoons gardening or picnicking. There was a black hat with a small pullover black veil, presumably for funerals and mourning.

Finally, at the bottom of the closet were a row of shoe boxes, seven long and three tall, twenty-one boxes in all. I began at the upper left hand corner, working my way across the rows before moving down to the middle row.

The first box contained a pair of patent leather bone pumps with a scuffed right heel and a matching patent leather purse. I removed the shoes from their box. The pumps were cold and stiff in my hands, and I placed them along the side of the bed. I picked up the purse and felt a bulge from within. Inside the main compartment of the purse I found a plastic cigarette lighter, a packet of pocket tissue, and a clear plastic rain bonnet. I placed the empty purse in front of the shoes. Then I placed its contents in a row before the purse.

I opened the second box. It contained a pair of patent leather black pumps, no scuffs, and a matching patent leather purse. Again, the purse contained a plastic cigarette lighter, a packet of pocket tissue, and a plastic rain bonnet. Again, I placed the shoes, purse, and contents in a row along the side of the bed.

Every box revealed a patent leather duo, in red, tan, ivory, navy blue, even a particularly loud dark blue and green plaid concoction. And within every purse, the same contents: the plastic cigarette lighter, the packet of pocket tissue, the clear plastic rain bonnet.

As I took down the wall of boxes from my father's aunt's closet, I constructed a fence of their contents on the floor beside my father's aunt's bed.

Twenty-one pairs of patent leather pumps.
Twenty-one patent leather purses, matching.
Twenty-one plastic cigarette lighters, color in no relation to the purses.
Twenty-one packets of pocket tissue, all opened and mostly unused.
Twenty-one clear plastic rain bonnets.

In the hallway, I could hear mother remarking to the family that it was amazing how much clutter and rubbish could be amassed in even the smallest house over a lifetime.

All the women in the hall agreed.

Smelling the Daisies

2006-02-12T14:29:00.000-07:00

The therapist my mother sends me to told me I should take time to reflect upon myself. He said that I should take some time to be completely alone at least once a week, so I can just sit and think. I told him this sounded rather foolish, that I often try to sit alone and away from my mother. But my therapist said this was somehow different.

The therapist my mother sends me to said that at least once a week, I should take advantage of the house being empty, a time when mother is out on an errand or at a meeting. During this time, when the house is completely empty, I should sit quietly in my room, or in the garden if I prefer, and think about myself.

I told my therapist that this seemed a rather egotistical way to be spending my free time and that my mother hired him to help me become a better husband someday. I told him that I only wanted him to help me to find a friend. In either case, I told him, sitting around and thinking of only myself seemed a poor way to begin any sort of relationship.

But my therapist told me that it was actually the best way to begin any sort of relationship. He told me that it would be important for me to be comfortable with myself before I could become comfortable with any other person.

I am, generally speaking, comfortable. I wear fitting shoes and clean socks every day. My pants are sturdy and clean. My shirts are always suitable to the weather. I am only ever uncomfortable when we have dinner parties and mother asks me to wear my suit. It is my father's suit from before the war. She says I look like him when I wear the suit, but I feel that I look like a child wearing his father's suit.

My therapist says that I need to be a different sort of comfortable with myself during these times alone in my house. He said I should sit calmly and think about my life.

This afternoon, mother went out to a luncheon. She asked if I would come, and I told her that I would be staying at home. Mother was actually quite upset about my decision. She said that she had RSVP'd for the two of us, that she had had father's suit pressed for the occassion. But I reminded her that the therapist that she sent me to had recommened this time alone. She pursed her lips so much that her lipstick began to leak into the creases about her mouth. Whenever mother gets to that point, she usually gives up and reapplies foundation.

I realize now how little time I have to simply sit and think about my life. Having those moments utterly alone this afternoon made me realize it. I had no responsibilities to anyone, not even myself. The only sounds were mine. The only thoughts were mine. The only choices were mine. I could be depressed if I wanted to. I could be hopeful. I found I could sit and daydream about all the things I want to be someday. For instance, I think it might be nice to pick apples for a day or two. Not for pleasure, but as a job. You'd get up early in the morning and put on a pair of heavy gloves. You'd go out to the orchard and climb up a ladder. Then, you'd pick. You'd pick apples all day long. Your back would ache. Your gloves would get sticky with apple juice. The smell would start to nauseate you, especially when the acidic apple juice began to mix with the acrid stink of your sweat. At lunch, you would sit beneath the tree and breathe the air, just glad to have your arms at your sides for an hour.

I told my therapist about my realization about being an apple picker. He told me that wasn't really the sort of thing he had wanted me to reflect upon during my solitary period. I told him that he should have been specific about what he wanted me to reflect upon if he had had something in mind all along. I don't think he liked that either.

I am supposed to try to have more solitary periods in the future, at least once a week he said. Next time, I am supposed to find out whether or not I am truly satisified with my life. Am I happy? Am I depressed? I told him that these seemed like questions he was supposed to answer, his being a therapist and all. My therapist told me that I have to put in the effort if I want to move forward.

I just wanted to try my hand at something new.

The Worst Thing I've Ever Done

2006-01-19T13:56:00.000-07:00

The therapist my mother sends me to recommended that I begin to revisit my past in order to reclaim my future. He says that it is important to begin to recognize the folly of one's youth. He told me that it is only after we begin to recognize those things that we ought to regret that we can truly begin to develop character. I told him he stole this moving piece of advice from the play Hospitality Suites, which was later made into a film called The Big Kahuna. I don't think the therapist my mother sends me to likes me very much.

All of the worst things I've ever done were done in junior high. My therapist tells me that most people have a rocky time through junior high. I told him that junior high seemed no better and no worse than the rest of my academic life.

In junior high, there was a small group of boys that I would sit with during lunch hour and on the bus. We all had honors math together and so were equally ridiculed by the boys who had already begun to grow stubble. There was also a boy who wanted desperately to be part of our group of boys. He wasn't in honors math with us, but he had still not grown any facial hair. Whenever we were talking during lunch, this boy would interject with, "Oh, I like that movie, too!" or "Yeah, that's my favorite level, too!" or "I love to be thief class, too!" I know now that he just wanted to be one of us, not that being one of us was a particularly enviable position in the hierarchy of Edison Junior High. In retrospect, I knew then that he wanted to be one of us but was too callus to pay that any heed.

At some point, our little lunch group had had enough. During honors math one afternoon, we invented a rock band. At lunch that day, we began talking about this rock band in front of our hanger-on. We talked about our favorite albums. We talked about our favorite songs. We talked about our favorite band members. And this poor boy took the bait. "Oh yeah, DingBats is my favorite album, too!" "Eric is your favorite? I like that other guy better." "Which one? The lead singer?" "Yeah, that's him. He's got awesome hair."

Every lunch period became consumed with further elaborations about this band. We even began planning on buying tickets for the upcoming concert. We talked about saving our allowances, taking on extra chores to buy tickets as close to the stage as possible. I went so far as to fabricate a traumatic struggle with my parents for over a week about going to see a rock band concert without adult supervision. "Man, that sucks, Harold. My parents didn't even care that I wanted to go with my friends."

The weekend after the "concert" was filled with frenzied discussion. We talked about the best guitar solos, the best live versions of songs, how awesome the pyrotechnics were. "It was amazing! We didn't see you at the concert, man. Where were you?" "Dude, I was there. Where were you guys?"

The tide turned on the poor boy so quickly.

"There was no concert."

"What are you guys talking about? Of course there was. We were all there."

"No, we weren't. We made it up. We made it all up."

He tried desperately to stay afloat.

"Whatever, you guys. You're being stupid. We love them, and that concert rocked!"

But it was obvious. His face flushed. He rocked on his feet. His voice cracked and faltered. He tried to play it off as if he had thought we had been talking about another band the last several months.

No dice.

He tried to play if off as if he had known the whole time that we were kidding, that he had been playing along with us.

We weren't having it.

After that, he stopped coming by at lunch. We never picked on him or talked to him after that, but the damage had been done. Even at that age we could tell that the wind had been taken out of his sails.

The next year we metriculated to high school. He transferred to a different school.

After recounting this story to the therapist my mother sends me to, he told me that my experience was not uncommon among preteens. He said that most people have similar stories. I am unconvinced. And now that I have relived this incident, I fail to see how my character will be improved.

I Am Not Anyone's Favorite Person

2006-01-18T22:45:00.001-07:00

My mother has always told me that I am an awkward person to be around. At dinner parties, she says I ruin guests' appetites with my palor and laconicness. I looked it up once, and "laconicness" is not a word.

People are difficult creatures to dissect. Their motives are haphazard at best, and they seem to spend a great deal of time talking about themselves. I don't understand what is supposedly so compelling about listening to an investment banker talk about his work or hearing what a buyer has bought for a company. I doubt these accounts are interesting to the speaker, let alone the other 658,591,463 people on the planet (as of 03:09:12 GMT, 18-Jan-06).

I am waiting for a friend. One person to watch with me. Watching is lonely without company.

I have never had a friend before. I have tried on numerous occassions, but have never found success. I think this has a lot to do with the fact that I have very little to say. I never have anything "up." I am not put off by "uncomfortable silence." I have never found a silence to be uncomfortable. The therapist my mother sends me to suggested this blog as a mode of expressing myself. I suggested using it to find my one friend, and he said that I could try that.

I would like my friend to be more active than I am. I like to sit and think. Unfortunately, this keeps me at home most of the time. My mother is also home most of the time, which is the leading cause of my interrupted thoughts. If I had a friend, they might take me outside to think. I also think my friend should share my interests. The therapist my mother sends me to says that good friends have common interests. I am interested in death. However, the therapist suggested that I express my interests in the philosophy of life instead. So, I am intested in the philosophy of life, especially as it pertains to death. But I would not like my friend to be a philosopher who will suggest books to me. I do not like to read, especially about life and death. I prefer to watch and think about life and death.

I hope that I am able to find a friend.