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“Viste?” my mother asked.
“Tú eres un melancólico-colérico.”
An old-world phrase from an old-world book of personality types. You see? my mother said.
You are a choleric-melancholic type.
Cholerics, she explained, tended toward extroversion and were very goal oriented. Melancholics, by contrast, tended to be analytical, deep thinkers yet intuitive. The kind of people that “tuned in” to feelings.
“Tiene que ver con cómo entendemos al otro, como un psicoanálisis.”
It has to do with how we understand the other, like a psychoanalysis.
Psychoanalysis—the word hung in my mind like a revelation. People could tune in to one another, literally the other (“al otro”), like a frequency. And when we're on the same frequency, understanding can happen.
And just like that, on a patio resting under the shadow of a great mango tree, psychoanalysis was born in Puerto Rico. At least, as far as my eight-year-old mind was concerned.
“Pero y si estás desafinao?” I asked my mother. But what if you're out of tune?