“What’s that like for you?”
“What? Having everything in that box?”
I nodded.
“It’s not so bad. Out of sight, out of mind. It worked just fine . . . until now. I can tell you a lot about the blessings of denial. I’ve always thought your profession lacked a proper appreciation for denial.”
“Right! We don’t invite denial to our campfire. I confess that I expect my patients to doff their denial and hang it in the cloakroom before entering.”
We smiled together. We were a good pair. When had I last uttered “campfire,” “doff,” and “cloakroom” during a therapy hour? I sensed us settling comfortably into a writerly conversation. Careful, careful, I thought. She has come for help, not conviviality.
“That box—where do you keep it?”
“Actually there are two boxes. Box number 1, the main guy, is jammed full, taped shut, and stored out of sight, way in the back of my closet. I’ve jettisoned a lot of things over the years—clothes, photos, books—but not that box. I’ve carried that box around with me, as a tortoise lugs its shell, from dwelling to dwelling for most of my life. In it is all my work from adolescence until about fifteen years ago. The second box, where I store all my recent work, is open for business under my desk.”
“So you’ve saved your whole life’s output of writing and keep it close but out of sight?”
“No, not my entire oeuvre. A good bit from even earlier years met a sad fate.”
“How so?”
“It’s an odd story. I’m pretty sure I didn’t tell you this in our previous therapy. One day when I was about fourteen, my parents and brothers were out, and I began snooping through the dresser drawers in my father’s bedroom. That was not unusual for me. I can’t recall what I was looking for, but I’ve always been a hard-core snooper. On this particular day I found two of my poems in a drawer containing my father’s sweaters. The paper seemed damp, as though my father’s tears had fallen on them. I had never given him my poems, and I was absolutely enraged that he had them. How could he have gotten them? There was only one way: he must have snooped through my room when I was at school and stolen them.”
“And so . . . ”
“Well, I couldn’t very well confront him with it, could I? That way I’d have to admit I was snooping in his closet. So I had only one recourse.”
“Which was . . . ”
“I burned all the poems I had ever written.”
Ouch! It felt like a stab in the heart. I tried to hide it, but she missed nothing.
“You winced when I said that.”
“Burning all the poems you had ever written! I’m trying to conjure up a picture of that fourteen-year-old girl striking a match and setting her poems on fire. What a painful, horrendous thought. Such violence toward yourself! Tell me, Sally, do you have any sympathy for that young, fourteen-year-old girl?”
Sally looked touched. She tilted her head back and glanced upward for a few seconds, “Hmm. I’ve never addressed that particular question before. I’ll have to think on it.”
“Let’s tag it and make sure we return to it later. It’s important. For now though, let’s talk more about your reasons for coming.” I would have greatly preferred to return to that mysterious taped-up box—it drew me in like a nail to a magnet—but Sally’s story of burning her work when her father invaded her privacy gave me pause. The situation called for great discretion. She’d get back to that box, I was sure of it, but only on her schedule, only when she was good and ready.
Over the next few months we prepared the ground for her new life. First she had to deal with retirement, a major, often frightening transition that few navigate with equanimity. Though she was fully aware of the many obstacles in her way, she was also a determined, efficient woman who composed a checklist and checked off one item after another.
First she had to come to terms with the irreversibility of her decision. Her particular field of physics moved so quickly that her knowledge base would soon be outdated, and she knew that she would not have the option of changing her mind in the future and reclaiming her job. To make sure that her lab would function without her, she instigated a thoughtful administrative reorganization, insuring a smooth transition.
Next she addressed loneliness. Her husband planned to continue to fly for five more years and was away fifty percent of the time, but she knew she could count on a bevy of friends. And then there was the question of finances. At my suggestion, she and her husband consulted a financial advisor and learned they had sufficient funds for retirement, provided they gave their children less money. They then arranged a meeting with their two sons, who reassured her that they could manage on their own.
The final item on her list—where to write?—was particularly bothersome to Sally, and she fretted about it for weeks. To write well, she required absolute silence, solitude, and restful contact with nature. Eventually she located and rented a nearby loft encircled by the arms of a massive California oak.
And then one day, to my great shock, she entered my office carrying a two-foot-by-two-foot box, a box so heavy that the floor quivered when she set it down between us. We sat in silence looking at it until she extracted a large pair of shears from her purse, kneeled on the floor next to the box, looked at me, and said, “Today’s the day, I guess.”
I tried to slow things down. Sally’s eyes were red, her lips trembled, and her grip on the shears seemed unsteady. “First, let me ask what you’re feeling. You look so strained, Sally.”
Sitting back on her heels, she replied, “Even before our first session, I knew that this day would come. This is why I came to see you. I’ve dreaded it, hardly sleeping several nights, especially last night. But I woke up this morning somehow knowing that now was the time.”
“What did you imagine happening when you opened it?” I had posed that question in the past, but it had never proved fruitful. On this day, however, she was forthcoming.
“There are a lot of dark chapters in my life, darker episodes than I’ve conveyed to you, and there are a lot of dark stories in that box, stories that I may have mentioned, but only obliquely, in our therapy. I’m afraid of their power, and I don’t want to get sucked back into those days. I’m very frightened of that. Oh yes, as you know, my family looked good from the outside, but inside . . . inside there was so much pain.”
“Is there a particular story or poem that you dread meeting again?”
Rising from the floor and setting down her scissors, Sally settled back into her chair. “Yes, one story that I wrote when I was in college haunted me all last night. ‘Riding on the Bus’ I think it was called, and it was about me at thirteen, a period when I was so unhappy I seriously considered suicide. In the story—a true story—I boarded a bus and rode to the end of the line and then kept riding it back and forth for hours contemplating how to end my life.”
“Tell me more about not sleeping last night.”
“It was bad. My heart pounded so hard I felt the bed shaking. I was terrified of that particular story and how I sat all day on the bus, thinking of killing myself. I remember being unable to find a reason to continue living. I kept imagining myself opening the box, rummaging around, and then finding that story.”
“You were thirteen then, and you’ve just turned sixty. So that means the bus ride was forty-seven years ago. You’re no longer that thirteen-year-old girl. You’re all grown up now; you’re married to a man you love, mothered two fine sons; you love being alive, and you’re here today planning to pursue your real calling. You’ve come so very far, Sally. And yet you hold onto the idea you’ll be sucked back into the past. How—when—did that odd myth take hold?”
“Long ago. That’s why I taped the box shut.” She picked up the shears again. “Maybe that’s why I brought it here to your office.”
I raised my eyebrows and gave her my best puzzled look. “How
so?”
“Maybe if you’re with me, you’ll hold me and keep me in this world.”
“I’m a good holder.”
“You promise?”
I nodded.
With that, Sally again kneeled on the floor, methodically cut the tape—doing as little damage as possible to this treasured box she had lived with most of her life—and gradually pried open the lid. Then she sat back in her chair, and we both stared in silence, in awe, at the startled stacks of paper, the dusty literary record of her life. She picked one sheet at random and silently read a poem.
“A little louder, please.”
She looked at me in alarm. “I’m not used to sharing this stuff.”
“What better time than right now to break a bad habit?”
Her hands trembled as she looked at the page. She cleared her throat a couple of times. “Well, here are the first lines of a poem I don’t recall at all. It’s dated 1980.”
To want words
Is not hunger
But disease
Dis ease
A lack of mountains
Comfort collapsed
Just flat
Landscape
Eating the evening up
Like a train
Across Wyoming
Roaming those thought tracks
My feet made to scale
Like those of fowl that
Pace the low tide shore
Till water or words rise
To level all sign
Of unusual bird
Or strange mind
Tears came to my eyes. I found it hard to find words. “It’s a stunning poem, Sally. Stunning. I love it, especially those last two magnificent lines.”
Sally took a handful of tissues, lowered her head, and wept for a few minutes. Then, dabbing her eyes with a tissue, she peeked up at me. “Thank you. You can’t imagine how much that means.” She spent the rest of the session sifting through the ancient pages of her life, occasionally reading passages aloud, and then, as the end of our time approached, sat back in her chair and took two deep breaths.
“Still here in the present with me?” I asked.
“Still rooted in 2012. I’m so glad you’re here. Thank you. I couldn’t have opened this without you.”
I glanced at the clock. We had run past the hour. Sometimes patients catch that glance and conclude that I’m impatient for the hour to end. But often, like today, it was just the opposite. I was hoping we had more time to pursue the path we were treading.
“We’re going to have to stop now, but first we should plan how to proceed. For sure I think we should meet tomorrow or the next day.”
Sally nodded assent.
“And do you feel comfortable looking through your writing at home? Or would you prefer to leave the box here with me, and we’ll continue looking together next time.”
As she thought about my question, I added, “I promise not to snoop.”
Sally elected to take the box home and to meet again two days later. After she left, I thought about what a privileged profession I had. What an honor to share such pivotal and precious moments! And listening to her read her poetry was such a treat. I’m tone deaf and never appreciate concerts or opera but have always delighted in the spoken word—theater and, above all, poetry readings. And here, today, I am being paid to be present at this extraordinary drama and to listen to exquisite lines of poetry. I felt guilty at enjoying my hour with Sally so much. Of course, I knew it was problematic—without doubt transference was haunting this session, and the hovering image of her father vastly increased the complexities of her sharing her work with me. And there was also the issue of how I, a professional writer, might respond to her artistry. Some therapists decline to read a patient’s writing for fear of damaging the relationship. They worry about what they would say if they disliked or couldn’t comprehend the writing. I’ve never fretted over that. I have too much respect for anyone seeking to cultivate creativity. If the writing is not to my liking, I can always find some lines that move me and point those out to the writer. That’s always welcome and often helps writers to raise their work. In this instance, no problem whatsoever arose, since Sally was a gifted writer and all I had to do was tell the truth.
For many weeks she read through her work and painstakingly entered everything, every word, into her computer. The task proved to be a treasure trove for the work of therapy, in that she arrived at each session brimming with vivid recollections about her relationships with her parents, siblings, friends, and past lovers. In her early twenties a series of poems, each sounding more pained and more desperate, presaged the collapse of her first marriage. One day she appeared at my office holding a bundle of sixty-six love poems written to Austin, a demon lover with whom she had had a brief passionate affair in her youth. The poems sang of soaring, unending love, but all too soon her relationship with Austin peaked and then ended badly with a foul aftertaste. She had misjudged him and ended up feeling exploited and traumatized. Hence, when she discovered those poems, her first impulse was disgust, and she considered burning them but desisted until she spoke to me. I was horrified at the thought. I never burn anything and have a large folder entitled “Cuts,” holding all the material cut from my novels and stories. I told all of this to Sally in my appeal to save the poems from the fire. I stalled for time by asking Sally to read aloud some of the poems about Austin. With quavering voice she read a few passages.
“I think they’re lovely,” I said.
She began to weep. “But they’re fraudulent. And I’m fraudulent too. The few months during which I wrote these was the most glorious time of my life—and yet these poems are rooted in a dung heap.” We spent the last fifteen minutes of the session discussing the many great works of art that had unsavory beginnings. I presented arguments, one after the other, pleading for the life of these innocent poems. I told her the transformation of dung into beauty is artistic triumph, and that if it weren’t for errant passion, death, despair, and loss, the great bulk of art would never have been born. She eventually acquiesced and ultimately transcribed the sixty-six poems to Austin into her computer. I felt like a hero who had rescued a precious ancient manuscript from the flames.
Much later, when we were reviewing our therapy, I was to learn that this episode was far more than a short subject accompanying the main attraction of unpacking the mysterious sealed box. Because Sally was so ashamed of the affair and her participation in Austin’s elaborate bondage rituals, she had never shared this with a living soul in all these decades. Revealing all to me and getting a supportive response had great impact. She felt enormously liberated and, for the first time, asked for and received a hug at the end of the session.
That night she had a dream. “I found a pile of folded laundry by my door that someone, possibly my husband, had placed there. I started to put it back in the washing machine—it might have gathered dust sitting there—but then I decided against it and put the clothes in my dresser.” The dream message was all too clear: she had no more dirty laundry to wash.
All the while, as Sally sifted through her stories and poems, and we discussed all the variegated and rich issues contained therein, I anticipated the uncovering of more portentous themes. Where were all those dark works that had caused her to bury her writing for a lifetime? Where, for example, was that dreaded bus story?
And then one day it arrived. She entered my office holding a folder. “Here’s the story. Would you please read this?”
I opened the folder. The five-page story was entitled “Riding on the Bus.” It was a simply told story of a young girl hugely upset by a fight with her parents and by taunting from cruel classmates. She decides to cut the rest of the school day and, for the first time, seriously considers suicide. It is a freezing winter day, far too cold for the hour’s walk home, and yet she has no money to take the bus. Her fathe
r’s office is nearby, but the previous day he refused to come to her assistance during a heated confrontation with her mother, and she was still too enraged with him to ask for a ride home or for bus money. And so the young girl steps onto the bus and pulls her pockets inside out to indicate she has no money. The bus driver starts to refuse her entry but, seeing how she shivers from the cold, simply nods for her to board. She sits in the back of the bus and weeps softly the entire trip. At the end of the route all the passengers disembark, and the driver turns the engine off. He is about to get off the bus for his ten-minute coffee break when he notices the sobbing young girl and asks why she hasn’t gotten off. She tells him she lives at the other end of the route, and he not only lets her stay on the bus but also buys her a Coke and invites her to sit near him by the heater in the front. For the rest of the day the girl and the driver ride back and forth together on the bus.
I looked up from the story. “This is the dark story you dreaded so much?”
“No, I never found that story.”
“And this story?”
“I wrote it yesterday.”
I was speechless. We sat in silence for a few minutes until I ventured, “You know what I’ve been thinking? Remember what I said to you a few weeks ago, when you had come to realize that your parents weren’t cruelly withholding love but that they simply didn’t have it to give?”
“I remember clear as a bell. That was when you said that I had to give up the hope for a better past. That phrase caught my attention and has been circling in my mind ever since. I didn’t like it, but it was helpful. It got me over a tough spot.”
“Giving up the hope for a better past is a potent idea. I’ve uttered it to help many others, and it’s also helped me personally. But today, here,” I handed her back the story, “you’ve given it a creative and unexpected twist. You didn’t give up the hope for a better past; instead you’ve written a new past for yourself. Pretty impressive route you’ve taken.”
Sally put the story back into her briefcase, looked up, smiled, and offered one of the loveliest compliments I’ve ever received: “It’s not so hard if you’ve got a kind bus driver.”