When Someone Asks If You're a God . . .

My therapist missed my appointment last week. His wife/colleague/keeper of his schedule called him an ozone head and reminded me that I was not to take his word for anything related to appointments, that I was to check with her ALWAYS. I've never met her. However, she called during my session THIS week to request that my therapist rush home immediately to empty out the rat trap because -- and this seemed to be a surprise to her -- there was a rat in it.

They say people who study psychology do it to figure out what's wrong with themselves. I'm guessing that doesn't help them solve the problem, however.

Or maybe it does. My therapist doesn't seem to let his "ozone brain" come between himself and a lot of wisdom, of all kinds, the psychological and the spiritual, even wisdom of the horse sense variety.

I'm really grateful that my mental health is in the hands of human beings and not robotrons, sterile perfect people who are always punctual and who have no fear of rodents. It seems more like a team effort this way, like we're all in it together. Like we're pulling for each other. In fact, my therapist has mentioned this is a tenet of his practice. "When I say that I'm thinking of you," he says, "it means I am. I do." I like to think of his thoughts like a light up ahead, a friendly glow in the darkness.

This week, we discussed mystery, specifically the kinds of evidence that science has no explanation for. Ancient maps of far-off planets. Kirlian photography and chakras. The possibility that humanity is really just the result of some genetic half-breeding between protohumans and an advanced alien civilization.

Really.

I liked the idea that our gods and monsters are more than symbolic creations of a brain wired for myth-making, that our religions and superstitions reflect reality (or our best attempts to make sense of it). Of course aliens would look like gods to us. Of course they would leave as quickly as we'd mastered basic civilization. Of course they wouldn't come back until we'd outgrown our terrible two's.

This was a good session. I'm not sure it was therapeutic, but it was good. It was oddly comforting to know that not everything's been figured out yet, not even by ten thousand years of our best thinking. It meant that I'm off the hook for figuring out my little slice of the the time-space continuum. That even though my knowledge can never reach Knowledge, it should do for me, thank you very much.

So yes. Thank you very much.

A Poem by a Good Friend

Blame Bogart
by David Starnes (2003)

To those I've damaged, those
whose hearts I felt too hard, I fell
too hard for, darkening their view,
I love no longer for the sake of fire.

Blame Bogart, Brando, Clift and Dean,
blame cinema, the thrall
of make believe, the sainted looks
of heroes, unheroic, bound to lose.

To those I've lied to, died
inside for, trading honesty
for honey, right for ripeness on the vine,
I live no longer for the dying scenes.

Blame Bogart, Brando, Clift and Dean,
blame movie screens, the framed
persuasions of a manhood, images
quicksilvered over, quickening my age.

To those I've lost, I've found
no longing worth the distance there,
no having dear enough to hold.
Forgive me, those who gave me all, for taking more.

From Original Skin by David Starnes, 2004