Dear Readers: I am not sure what kind of notices you receive in your Substack posts when you first open these. I suspect the system duns you to become paid supporters, and I’m not sure how to turn these off. Allow me to assure you that although I am most grateful for your hard-earned kopeks, this is not at all necessary. I’m more interested in keeping the numbers up, and so if you know of anyone who would enjoy this ongoing effort, please don’t hesitate to send EMM as a gift. As always, I’m most delighted by your continued interest and comments. I’m a sucker for an appreciative audience. AL
As he requested, for my next session with Dr. Heim, I brought snapshots of Mr. Landi, of my father, and the only one I could find of my mother and me, taken 15 years earlier, when I was in my mid-twenties (we were not one of those camera-happy families). At the time, I straightened my hair and parted it in the middle, and had a sweetly wide-eyed inquisitive look on my face, an aging brunette version of Alice in Wonderland. “You were a very pretty girl!” Dr. Heim exclaimed, with some surprise, leaving me to speculate just now bad I was looking then.
And I brought him a dream, too, one in which Mr. Landi was present at my high-school graduation (of course he had not been), and I alone of all the graduates was wearing a white robe (everyone else was wearing that near-neon rental blue). I’d gotten my period, as had happened in real life, and had doubled up on the Tampax and wore a sanitary pad for good measure, but was still terrified of leakage.
“It is a dream of commencement!” my shrink exclaimed in triumph. “It is a dream of your wonderful new life with your husband. The commencement is also a marriage ceremony. And your period represents the fertility you bring to your union!”
By the fourth session, I was dreaming up a storm, and writing down all kinds of details to bring the good doctor. In one, I was undergoing a C-section, and when the surgeons opened me up they found a perfectly formed three-month old baby sucking on a piña colada through a straw inserted in a pineapple. The colors in this one were exceptionally memorable, the kind of pale washed-out tones you find in medical illustrations, but I doubted Dr. Heim was much interested in the aesthetics.
“And what do you think this means?” he asked.
“I think it might have something to do with fear of childbirth,” I answered. “I mean, a pineapple is a very prickly fruit. That could be incredibly painful making its way through the birth canal.” I didn’t mention that I was also getting a bit worried about my drinking, which was sometimes up to two or three glasses of wine a night.
“No!” exclaimed Dr. Heim, and I could hear his pen scratching furiously behind me. “The dream is about you and rebirth. It is you being born again through psychotherapy!”
I started to protest, but he cut me off with an abrupt change of tack, which was coming to seem the norm in our time together.
The next week, I had another crazy birth dream in which I was delivered of six tiny marmalade kittens and lovingly licked off the placenta off each. Dr. Heim could only issue a discreet cough in response; he had no analysis for that one.
“Tell me about your physical life with your husband.”
I sighed in exasperation. “Dr. Heim, I’ve already explained that we’ve been having, uh, problems. We’re working on those.”
“But before that. Was it good? What were the good times like when it was good?”
Vat verr the gut times like ven it vas gut?
There is something about being a woman, something about lying flat on your back in a strange office, your most vulnerable aspect exposed to the ceiling, that can make talking about the personal details in your marriage excruciatingly uncomfortable. Even more painful was to have to search far back in memory to remember when we had last had a lusty tumble, or even an over-the-top good time, laughing uproariously at some incident or shared memory. “I guess things have begun to get a little boring. But that’s not unusual in a marriage….there are so many other stresses.” I could feel a headache gathering like a knot between my temples. “I guess, in truth, I was getting a little tired of always having to be the aggressor, of always having to be on top, too, if you know what I mean.”
Dr. Heim said nothing for a bit, and then burst out suddenly, and to my ears angrily, “Well, then when you want a man to be on the bottom, go find a man for that purpose.”
That struck me as just about the most ludicrous piece of advice to give to a woman in an ailing marriage. I swung my legs off the couch and fumbled to find my purse and my checkbook.
“I see our time is just about up,” he said. “But just tell me this…”
I looked at him warily.
“When was the last time Alex took your face between his hands and told you what a pretty woman you are?”
And at that I simply burst into tears.
“Well, good,” he said. “At last I think we are starting to get somewhere.”
Almost every shrink I’ve ever consulted in my benighted adventures in psychotherapy has had a theory about men, marriage, and relationships. Mrs. Tint believed that every woman needed three men—one for intellectual stimulation, one for sex, and one for security. Another therapist I consulted for an article in Glamour similarly claimed a good union consisted for shared interests, a healthy physical connection, and simple comfort in the other’s presence. Ah, yes, but where do you find such a miraculous commingling of spirit and flesh? Do you read Kierkegaard in bed together after coitus, and then fall asleep in each other’s arms? What about money? What about in-laws? What about who washes the dishes and cleans out the cat box?
After a few months, I was beginning to dislike Dr. Heim intensely, and felt particularly annoyed when he insisted that a baby was the answer to all my problems. “You are not getting any younger, and conception will become more difficult. This is what your baby dreams are all about.” I explained that I didn’t think Mr. Landi particularly wanted children; his was a large family and he grew up as caretaker for his younger siblings. More diapers and babysitting were not on his agenda.
“The women have got to want the babies!” Dr. Heim shouted. “The men never do.”
“I thought that was maybe something couples should decide together.”
“Not always! Throw away your diaphragm!” (How did he know I used one? Had I told him that?) “Give it your best shot. You will see—he will come to love a baby. And you can quit this ridiculous commuting marriage you’ve established.”
And that was it. That was the end of my therapy with Dr. Heim. How dare this presumptuous old fart with his creepy accent and dour office dare tell me how to live my life? A few days later, I called his office and got the answering machine. I left a short and curt message: “I’m sorry, but I don’t wish to continue therapy with you. Perhaps you would like to discuss this in your office, but I would prefer over the phone.”
Mysteriously, several weeks went by before I heard from him again. This time he left a message on my machine: “You must come into the office. We must have a final session. We need to separate.”
When I called and got him in person, he repeated the same mandate. “A final session is necessary so that we can complete the process and formally separate.”
“Couldn’t we just get a quickie Mexican divorce?”
There was a silence, and then I heard a soft click as the receiver was gently replaced.
Roasted Tomato Sauce for Pasta
This is another shortcut dinner. I like to slow-roast a pint of grape or cherry tomatoes at 250F for about three hours, until they are wrinkled and ready to burst. Before smacking them in the oven, first toss them with kosher or sea salt (about 1/2 teaspoon), 1 tablespoon of olive oil, and, if you like, a couple of crushed garlic cloves and herbs (like rosemary or thyme) or a teaspoon of Italian seasoning, though none of this is strictly necessary, and I usually just go for the tomatoes, salt, and olive oil. When they are done, pour them into a bowl and mash coarsely with a fork. Then add about 1 to 2 cups of sugar-free jarred tomato sauce (I like Rao’s marinara and Prego traditional). And that’s it. Simply toss with cooked pasta or gnocchi or glop it on top. And then pass the grated Parmesan. No one will know you didn’t spend hours stirring and tasting. Serves 4 to 6.
Hi Ann-I had a laugh at this:
“You were a very pretty girl!” Dr. Heim exclaimed, with some surprise, leaving me to speculate just now bad I was looking then.
It’s what I think of as a backhanded compliment. When I started my current job 16 years ago, a colleague of mine looked me in the face and said, “Oh, you must have been very beautiful when you were young.”
Looking back now those 16 years with a lot more road traveled on this face I think, damn, I was still holding my own and looked damn good!
Being a wall, as a silent witness might work if you had time to get to know the person. This was the first visit to this jerk. It was ridiculous.