The Washington Complex

Last year on April Fools' Day the Northeast was deluged with heavy wet snow. For a brief time, while we all remained all indoors, the outdoors was like a gallery draped in a gorgeous white protective canopy. Alas, this pristine cloak provided no real protection, for beneath its weight many of the trees were cracking and breaking and when the snow melted, it left a ravaged landscape in its wake. Particularly hard hit were the ornamental trees, many of which were lost altogether, although even some of the grand old seemingly invincible giants also suffered serious injury. Yet, as if to reassure us that something is possible beyond loss itself, spring finally brought with it one of the most beautiful displays of flowering trees in recent memory.

No longer held captive indoors, I sat beneath one of the cherry trees spared by the winter's final wrath and sank into reverie. My thoughts meandered to George Washington, beloved ancestor, founding father of our country and erstwhile lumberjack. I thought of the folk tale which is so much a part of our nation's prehistory (that is, our metaphorical past, the symbolic backdrop structuring our psychic existence). The tale of course, is of George Washington as a young boy on the threshold of masculinity, cutting down his father's favorite cherry tree with an ax and voluntarily confessing to the crime. According to Mark Twain, the confession was along the lines of, “Father, I cannot tell a lie. I did it with my little hatchet.” These words capture the nation's ego ideal, the paragon of bravery and honesty. The story is likely an imaginary construction, but so much the better to fathom in search of dreamlike revelations. Furthermore, it is of particular relevance to psychoanalysts, concerned as we are with truth and the telling of it.

The story in its manifest form (the form, that is, in which it is routinely fed to American school children as part of their training in social relations) is not without its aesthetic and moral beauty.