Free association- Psychotherapy 101

I drove to Ventura yesterday. Yes. Me. I didn't destroy the car. There were cars and houses destroyed. My heart hurt for the man who will never forget that he chose to get food instead of being with his family in their final moments. Sometimes it feels better to take on everyone else's pain, it blurs one's own. It makes it less tangible. There were clean beautiful lines. I didn't crash. I thought I might. The ocean was stunning, a deep blue tinged with green, like the eyes of the lover you have not met yet. It was a theater of the absurd... but not like the Circo erótico de fin de siglo... absurd because once again it was impossible to see the movie... And foolishness and lack of sleep and anger and desperation and confusion are all just a part of the game. There is nothing real but the pain...

I had my first session yesterday. I thought I would be cool calm and collected. I cried. I didn't want to because crying makes me feel weak and I don't like to feel weak. I don't like to admit pain or acknowledge loss. I don't like to be told no. I don't like clowns very much and I hate to be teased. I hate the feeling desolate and alone. I wish that these things weren't true, and I wish that naked honesty weren't such a necessity for me, like the undressing before the watchful eyes, and the wanting to be watched, the peeling back of layer after layer, but always hiding... Barthes talked about the eroticism in the liminal spaces, the rubbing of edges, the exposing, and hiding again, the desire that is sparked by only being able to imagine what might be underneath, but never having full access to that thing. Or never having access again.

We have both, independently had a vision of Isabella's school crashing down in a moment of tectonic activity. I imagine digging through the rubble with bloodied fingers and her plaintive cry. I wonder if premonitions are really just (future?) memories leaking back through the collective conciousness. I wonder what Jung would have to say about this. Are they my fears or are they the fears of everyone that came before me and will come after me. Icebergs colliding, set on a path of destruction, and babies being born, to ex-lovers and to friends. What does it mean to bring another life into this world to suffer? to assuage our own fears of mortality? Do we do it for ourselves or for others? Are we their guides or are they ours, calling us back to the fold of the latent earth spirit?

Saving a building full of people and having 70 percent of your body scorched must change your perspective on life, and perhaps faith is a necessity, but not the rigorous imposition of Faith on people whose existence becomes predetermined. But for someone devoid of faith, it is hard to understand. There is so much, so much, so much blind ignorance, so much rage and anger, why does it go on? And then, the day is beautiful and you pick up your feet, and you collect the sticks that lay scattered about you, and you walk outside and the earth breaths and lives and vibrates under your feet. And the pain becomes smaller and the joy crescendoes, like the rolling timpani and the expectant breath held. Healed. Hell. Hail falls from the sky and breaks bones and bodies are washed to the ocean and life rolls on and on and on.

And I return to my labor, a labor of love or of need, holding the pages too close, clinging to the ideas of others, and growing firm, believing that there must be a purpose. And knowing that ultimately there is no such purpose, but clinging to the construction of that purpose if only to keep the center from exploding outwards into the abyss.