In Response to Merle Molofsky's Memoir

I want to give a shot to this response to Merle's memoir. I have to say that I had a mixture of feelings when I received the request. I was surprised. I have never written such a document, a response to a memoir or to a psychoanalytic paper. I then started questioning the reasoning as to why I was invited to respond. Was this tokenism? Was it fetishism, the interesting Black woman who might have things to say? My mind, as usual, wandered into various places. I guess that is why I am training to be a psychoanalyst.

I started thinking about Merle herself, whom I first encountered during my ethics class years ago, in the first iteration of my attempt to become a psychoanalyst before I took a four-year break. I had found her eccentric and interesting, my type of gal, I would say. She stayed in the periphery of my mind because she is a prolific writer, and I had created a folder of her contributions to the Institute's life that I called “Merle's Ramblings.” I know that might sound pejorative, but ramblings is quite a great word in my world. I have another folder called “Jane's Ramblings.” Jane used to be my mother-in-law's sister. She was an eccentric photographer who lived in the woods in New Hampshire, cursed up a storm, smoked pot, and liked to tell me about my ex-husband's family lore. I had a fondness for her. She has passed away. From time to time, I am seized by a bout of nostalgia, and I open the folder called “Jane's Ramblings” and read her meandering thoughts.

Meandering is another word that I really like. I use it a lot, and it is a positive one that goes along with rambling. I also used to write, back when I had social media, these rambling thoughts, or that is what I called them. And now I am realizing that all of this is just that I am a natural free associator. I free associate all the time and expect people to follow me in that path of free association. Often, of course, it throws people off, and I get a little annoyed when people cannot stay with me in tho