"So. . . tell me about your mother."
"What?"
"The couch. Lie down on the couch. It is therapeutic. It will take away your anxieties. You'll feel like talking."
The couch in psychoanalysis is a refuge, a place of safety and of comfort. It is an island in a sea of chaos.
She lay back and stared at the ceiling.
"How do you feel?"
"I'm fine."
"Just close your eyes for a minute. I want you to remember who you are."
"Who I am really or what I am playing?"
"Just lie back and relax. It will come to you. Think over and over, 'you are getting sleepy. . . you are getting sleepy. . . .' Or count backwards from one hundred. Feel yourself descending a hundred steps one at a time. . . downward into drowsiness. . . back to the crib. . . to your mother's womb. . . ."
She sat up.
"Wait a minute," she said. "You've just conflated Freud and Mesmer."
"I know, I know what I'm doing. Trust me. I'm an artist, goddamnit!"
"It doesn't work that way, you know. You can't make me do anything I don't want to do."
"That's not the idea. I just want to allow you do everything you want to do. That will be plenty. Now come on and quit talking. This is going to take forever."
Or something like that. The mask is not the only metaphorical image in this series, you know.
a jewel of a post...
ReplyDeleteLove today's--the photo, the narrative--and the couch!
ReplyDeleteHow did you come to own it? Distant relative a psychoanalyst?
It is a jewel. So nice I had to come back to it--carpenter ripping out wall under kitchen sink so I need distraction!
ReplyDelete"Conflate" is a great word for digital collage. (I confess I had to look it up!)
Thank you both for the sweetness. The origin of the couch is a secret--truly. One day it will come back to haunt me.
ReplyDelete