CHAPTER
ONE
What an insidious drug memory can be.
Especially the memory of unhappiness.
- Horace Holley
Especially the memory of unhappiness.
- Horace Holley
It
|
took almost an entire year for Jill to finally
hand over the quilt she promised me. A quilt constructed with luscious material
from Italy, or so Jill told me. Yet, as I unfolded the quilt there was
nothing Mediterranean about it. Actually, it had a distinctly celestial
or ethereal feel to it, and I was satisfied when Jill told me all of the fabric
was from her grandmother – a woman as closely identified in our community with
church as the local priest. I smiled. I thought of Jill’s grandmother and
her radiant, knowledgeable smile and soulful, omniscient eyes. As if
Jill’s maternal grandmother’s family may be able to claim that Jesus’ bloodline
courses through their veins. I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to be
proven incorrect and hear Jill confirm that her grandmother is simply of
Italian descent, as are most of the
people in this
seaside-town.
I’ve lived my entire life in
Newburytowne Hills. Well, with the
exception of the few years I spent away for college. Newburytowne Hills has its
flaws, certainly. Adults form
high-school-like cliques and gossip spreads like wildfire. Although we attract tourists and day-trippers
throughout the milder months, we are not known for being particularly
welcoming. Sure, we want you to spend
your money here but we have no patience for your big city attitudes or
judgments. We don’t like change unless
you have deep enough pockets. And, unless your grandparents lived in
Newburytowne Hills, and your parents lived in Newburytowne Hills and then you
were born in Newburytowne Hills you are not considered “from” Newburytowne
Hills”. The implication being that being
able to own the words “I am from Newburytowne Hills” is a badge of honor, you
are a proud descendant and you can claim the ever-coveted title of being a
“townie”.
But here’s the thing about
the people from Newburytowne Hills: They come together and support each
other in times of crisis. They have
fundraisers at local pubs and restaurants for families whose roofs were
severely damaged in the last winter storm, for couples who cannot afford the
exorbitant medical costs for their gravely sick child, to reconstruct the beach
footbridge. Newburytowne Hills has
mostly a large, proud, working middle-class population sprinkled with just the
right amount of affluence around the edges. We also have enough of a struggling population
to house a homeless shelter, two food banks and a host of non-profits to fill
the other gaps.
Newburytowne Hills’ natural
beauty, gives all residents, regardless of income level, reason to be thankful
to call this place home. We have six
beaches, three lighthouses, endless seaside biking paths and enough hiking
trails to occupy a season. We have
problems, as deep-seeded and difficult as the towns next door. But, the aesthetics of this place is high on
the list of my reasons for staying here. Access to the wide-open outdoors certainly
offers a calming backdrop to life’s inevitable obstacles. Besides, I have other
reasons that
are even more powerful.
I unfolded the quilt and
admired the mix of the majestic purples and lustrous golds with the more
earthly ecru white and mossy sage that make me want to close my eyes, cuddle up
on our stained yet comfy sofa and take a deep, peaceful nap. It makes me want to release my hair that has
been pulled tightly into a bun all day, from the Japanese hair stick, and
stretch my arms overhead. I feel safe in our little apartment with its
tiny kitchen, cozy bedroom and the intimate commingling of our belongings, our
lives. I feel safe with Jonathan with
his messy, curly hair, quirky crooked smile and the devoted way he inhales my
scent randomly throughout our day, as if I were a rare flower he couldn’t get
enough of. I absentmindedly fingered the
St. Francis of Assisi medallion that I keep in my pocket as a talisman and
stare at the quilt. Jill, a friend and coworker, also a social worker I
work on cases with from time to time, has an obsession with quilt design. Jill enjoys nothing more than picking who
would enjoy a handmade quilt and prides herself on also picking the style, the
materials and the pattern without consulting the recipient. And, from what she says, she seems to get it
right every time. She made a quilt in a
pale blue only to be told when she presented the woman with her gift that she
just found out she was pregnant – with a boy! She made a quilt dominated by yellow rose
patterns only to be told when she presented that woman with her gift
that her mother had just died – who had a deep passion for her rose garden –
especially the yellow ones! She made a
quilt that had a design more like a mural. When you held up the long and wide material,
it looked like a painting of a lush meadow with soft grass and majestic trees. The new owner of that quilt unexpectedly moved
to a Montana ranch after her husband got a windfall of money through a distant
yet wealthy uncle’s sudden death.
And sure enough, Jill She has
chosen patterns and colors that reflect me perfectly and it brought tears to my
eyes. My hand caressed the blanket, which seems as if I have owned it
forever and thought about how differently it turned out than what Jill
described to me over a year ago. I know she has entirely built and
rebuilt this labor of love at least once in the course of this pain-staking
process, and marvel at what resulted. A final version that Jill could not
have imagined almost a year ago. Admittedly, it is more than the beauty
of this luxurious work of art. It is more than the time and the money
that it took my friend to complete. It is more than the fact that she
chose the ideal combination of color, feel
and pattern for my taste, style and comfort. It is that when I look at
this quilt I think of what has happened over the course of the year in my life
that makes today seem so much different than what I would have imagined a year ago.
It took me a while to notice the
delicate crosses that are tucked into each of the four corners. I’ve asked Jill, why did she place them there?
How did she know to make her friend a
blue quilt, a yellow rose quilt, a quilt that depicts Montana? She says she doesn’t know. She just goes where the creative process leads
her and never, ever second-guesses herself.
Anyway, just like the quilt I
am made up differently today than I was a year ago. I too have been
constructed and deconstructed and am now pieced back together. It’s Dr.
Alba I have to thank and to blame for this patch-worked quilt that is my life.
***
Prior to meeting Dr. Alba, I
had no intentions of lying to him. I visited him for the first time not
out of any real desire to better myself, but simply to pacify the relentless voice in my head that I needed to
get my anxiety under control. I picked him out of my HMO book provided by
my always under budgeted, always under staffed non-profit employer and he fell
into my very stringent criteria: he accepted my health insurance, he had
availability, and he was conveniently close. We had a preliminary
conversation over the telephone, after playing phone tag for a few days. He seemed straightforward and professional. He asked me how I had come across his
practice? Had I ever been to therapy
before? What were my goals? Was I currently on medication? I was pleased to get some of these basics out
of the way, thinking we could get right to the core of it in our initial
meeting.
The building that housed Dr.
Alba’s office was small. It was a tight gray cube reminiscent of a
shoebox. Even with an entire mirrored wall, the vestibule appeared tight.
Yet there was something in the dankness of the paint, the tilt of the
walls and the mixture of limited sunlight and artificial light that seemed to
bring time to a standstill. Regardless of the time of day, the lobby made
it appear like dusk: my favorite time of every day. My mood was kept
light by both the comfort of the lobby and the hand-written, black penned “go
fuck yourself dr.” on the inside of the elevator door. The last name was
the only part of the sentence that was successfully removed. Although
there were other doctors’ offices in the building, I assumed it was meant for
Dr. Alba and I should have heeded it as a personal warning.
In comparison to Dr. Alba’s
rented office, the lobby was roomy. His gray peeling and cracked office
walls sealed themselves around you like a coffin. There was an
ever-persistent air of unsettlement breathed by the curling unframed photographs
taped to the walls, the mountains of files, and the relentless hum of a broken
air vent teasing a freshness that would never come. In the first few
sessions, before I found amusement, I found comfort in an old wooden plaque
resting on Dr. Alba’s desk, half hidden by a picture of his anorexic wife,
inscribed with the Zen proverb: “The Teacher will appear when the student is
ready.” Not that I had any connection or appreciation for that particular
brand of wisdom. It’s just that my mom had the same plaque, now hidden
away in some mementos box in my parent’s house.
Actually, the plaque was one
of the very first thing I noticed when I entered Dr. Alba’s office. He noticed me noticing it. After introducing himself by reaching over his
oversized, wooden desk with an outstretched hand, he lowered himself into his
chair and motioned in the direction of one the Lazy Boys opposite desk:
an invitation to sit.
“That quote has caught your
eye. What do you think of it?” His voice
sounded even more nasal than it did over the phone yet a bit deeper. I was caught slightly off guard by his stature
– or lack there of. He looked to be only
about the same height as me – a mere five feet six inches – and of a pretty
slight build. Except for the middle-aged
paunch that protruded from above his waist - hard as a rock. Instead of that little ball of excess weight
making him look out-or-shape it actually seemed to give more substance, it
seemed to make him appear more serious. I
was relieved to see that he was neatly dressed with a cobalt blue, button down
shirt, a tweed blazer and a pair of pretty hip jeans. I don’t think I could have stayed if his
personal appearance matched his disheveled surroundings.
I removed the yellow and
white polka-dotted scarf from around my neck as I lowered myself onto the edge
of the Lazy Boy.
“Well, uh….my mom had a
plaque like it. Well, I mean the plaque
itself was different but the words were the same. I must still have it somewhere.”
“Tell me about your mother,
Matilda. That’s a good place to start.”
***
During the first few
sessions, I tried to open up. I tried to be honest. I really did,
but there was a big problem. Dr. Alba had the same always-damp, nail-bitten
fingertips and hand-wringing compulsion that my Uncle Steve and neo-Nazi Nate
from college had. Both were eventually incarcerated for molesting
children. To me, Dr. Alba’s hands were as telling as a Sex Offender
Registry. I’m not saying that he is necessarily a pedophile, but there is
definitely something depraved amidst his psyche that I just can’t quite put my
finger on. It’s something in the way he
stares at me that seems inappropriate, that makes me feel like I should cover
up. Or maybe it’s in the way he
sometimes licks his lower lip in a slow predatory way that makes me feel like I
am being desired, that also makes me feel like I should cover up. I don’t know why I just didn’t stop seeing
him. Instead, in a very atypical display of my character, I found myself
blatantly lying to him. It must have been in about the fifth or sixth
session. He labeled me with some undergraduate Psychiatry 101 diagnosis
that made me feel particularly dismissed. I was so inwardly enraged and outwardly
offended that this inexplicable need to prove him wrong, even at the cost of my
own mental health, became overwhelming. Ironically, his boring diagnosis
turned out to be one hundred percent accurate. I am suffering from Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder with Generalized Anxiety. Basically, your
garden variety and easily treatable disorder.
Yet, in the moment, my mind
was hazy with anger. I began slowly leading the conversation in another
entirely unexpected direction for Dr. Alba. I am proud, and a little ashamed, to say he
never saw this coming.
“Sorry, I guess I’m a bit
preoccupied today”, a say in an almost whisper-like voice as I uncomfortably
scratch at a non-existent itch on my nose. I even go so far at to remove my sweater,
letting my upper arms breath even though his office is cool. As expected, Dr. Alba shifts in his seat. He is clearly noticing my body.
“Will you share with me
why?”, he says, leaning imperceptibly closer in his seat, still behind the
desk. I am grateful for that physical
boundary today. He seems particularly
predatory.
“I seem to have gotten myself
into a naughty little predicament”.
And right then, right when I
uttered those ridiculous, borderline raunchy, almost adult-movie lines that are
nothing like anything that would ever come out of my mouth – right then I know
I’ve got him. Right then I know he’s
deplorable.
By the end of the session Dr.
Alba was forced to come up with a new diagnosis: a Europhiliac. This of
course was after I confessed to the very creative but completely false secret
that I could only enjoy sex if my partner urinated on me. I still smile
just
thinking about
it.
***
I had taken a Sexual
Development elective in college under the ever-growing vast umbrella of
psychology. Although I retained almost none of my education, for some
very disturbing reason of which I have no idea, to this day I can remember the
entire list (in alphabetical order) of paraphilias and their meaning. I
had absolutely no idea that this bit of crazy trivia would one day prove to be
so useful. During one of the more memorable sessions I fabricated an
entire colorful and obscene story about a recent date I endured with an
otherwise conventional high-school English teacher who was willing to
accommodate my fetish if I was willing to accommodate his: maiesiophilia,
also known as pregnancy fetishism. All I had to do was pop a puffy pillow
under my shirt and
he was hard as
a rock.
This continued for several
sessions, or at least till my HMO pulled the plug. Shockingly enough, I
feel no remorse for wasting my HMO’s money in this terrible
American-health-insurance crisis era. Nor do I feel regret for having
lied and manipulated a so-called professional. I really only wish I would
not have wasted so many sessions in the beginning trying to be honest because
this was so much fun.
My Post Traumatic Stress, or
as we in therapy refer to it “PTSD,” stems from the death of my mother.
When I was six years old my mother was killed in a car crash.
Attesting to the widely believed simile that a child’s mind is like a
sponge, I absorbed every detail of my mother from the scent of her skin and the
shape of her eyebrows, to her fondness of old movies and her aversion to
oranges. My mom had beautiful, thick, wavy, dirty blonde hair, hazel
almond-shaped eyes (just like mine) and high, strong cheekbones. She was
effortlessly exquisite. After more than two decades, my memories of my
mom remain pristine. They did not erode with the passage of time.
It was though I had them encased in museum-grade glass. My memories
remained unspoiled because hey were shielded from the collective conscience of
other people’s memories. I did not reminisce about stories of summers past.
I did not flip through another’s photos albums. Too many times over
the years I witnessed my father absconding with other people’s memories.
Simply by hearing the same stories shared over and over again, those stories
became part of his memory. As far as I am concerned, such memories have
no integrity.