Grand Mother

For a long time now, Iíve thought of Nana, my psychoanalyst, as being a grand mother. What follows is a glimpse of one of our many ways of being together which reveals, perhaps, a little bit why I've thought of her in this particular way.

Nana has been relentless lately, and fierce. But tonight in session I start feeling like a turtle ambling down a road by the bare winter woods. Nana goes there with me. She encourages me to transform myself into a bird. Up, up—I'm up on a branch of an old apple tree. I think I'm an ugly bird, an ugly bird with droopy eyes. She says I'm an unusual bird. She wants me to give up the droop. I imagine lifting up my eyes.

And then I become a fisherman in an old Maine lobster boat with a wide berth. I have a little pipe. I chug on it as my boat chugs along. And suddenly I'm a fairy tale bear in a galley kitchen in Maine. I interrupt myself to say I'm a walking zoo, remembering the times my mother used to bitterly complain about how the world is a zoo and Nana suggested I tell mother ‘the zoo is in you’. Yes, I'm a mama bear cooking in the kitchen.

Nana says she thinks the table is set. Yes, a big old cozy cuddly papa bear is there, at the table. A fire crackles in the fireplace. We drink claret with our sausages and eggs and pancakes and apple sauce. I imagine I got the apples for my apple sauce from my cellar. I wonder to myself why Nana is encouraging my little stories tonight. Perhaps she wants me to rest, to feel safe. I momentarily feel very sad about myself. Strange and sad that that lost little girl is still so very much with me. I interrupt the silence to say I think the bears are eating some pickles in brine.