Ding, dong, bell
Dr. Feight said - this was Monday morning, “You haven’t been writing.”
“No,” I said.
“Do you know why?” he asked. “It’s been almost two weeks.”
“Maybe,” I said. Then: “This new car we bought; it's been working really well,” I said.
When I came home, after I’d fed Uncle Albert, who continues to come with me to all my appointments with Dr. Feight - we had what we often have, a cup of tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich; I had a Coke, the one I can have each day; he had a glass of water. Then, when he sat down on the couch to doze in front of CNN, I wrote a nursery rhyme:
Ding, dong, bell,
Ted’s been in the well.
What put him in?
Original sin.
What might get him out?
Bit o’ knockabout.
I wasn’t happy with it, but it was a nursery rhyme; I wasn’t trying to write “Sailing to Byzantium.”*
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| “Did I say tragedy? I meant farce.” - Simius |
I brought it to my session this morning with a picture I made from a template Mel Ball had drawn up for me. I just added the pie and the quote and the attribution, which I made up - both of them: I made up the quote, and I made up the attribution.
Dr. Tait looked at the nursery rhyme. He said, “Do you subscribe to that, ‘original sin’?”
I said, “Not literally. But I don’t know a better imaginative explanation for why we are as we are, always, though we have more than enough, wanting still more then unhappy when we get it.”
“I should have asked first maybe,” he said: “what’s this about ‘the well.’”
“I thought I might have told you already,” I said.
“Tell me again.”
“Moira talked about it, falling down a well.”
He waited. I waited. I didn’t want to go any further. But he kept waiting.
“I didn’t tell you?” I said finally.
“Tell me again.”
I said: “Once when I was really down, I called her. She was away at college I couldn't remember which time; but I was in New Orleans looking for a job. She’d already been in the hospital once, maybe twice; but she was doing well, I thought. We thought. Or it was what we chose to believe because we couldn’t believe otherwise.
“And I think she was doing pretty well at the time. It sounded like it on the phone anyway.”
I stopped. “Could I have some water?” I asked. There is always a glass on the table beside the couch I lie down on. I knew that, but I asked anyway. He said, “There”; and I could hear him pointing. I sat up and took a couple of sips. I lay back down.
I said, “‘I’m really, really down.’ That’s what I said to Moira. It was a selfish thing to do I know now, but I thought she’d understand, I thought, if anyone, she’d be sympathetic.”
“She wasn’t?”
“No, I think she was. I told her I was sorry to bother her. She said something like ‘Yes,’ which I took to mean, ‘It’s okay. Go on.’ And I told her I didn’t know what to do about it. I had tried to write about it. I'd listened to some jazz. I'd eaten lunch though I hadn't wanted any. And I was cleaning house.
“‘Cleaning house?’ she said. And I said that it was what I did. I thought then - and I still think now, though I believed then and I don’t any longer - that there’s some relief in putting things in order even if you know they’re going to jump right back out.
“‘You’re not falling, then?’ she said. I said, ‘No,’ then: ‘What do you mean?’ ‘You don’t feel like you’re falling?’ she said.
“I still didn’t know what she meant exactly, but ‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘Do you mean like down a well?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Maybe,’ I said again. ‘Is there water at the bottom?’ she asked. ‘I don’t know. Why wouldn’t there be?’ She said, ‘Look.’
“Look how? I thought, but I hesitated then said, ‘Yes,’ because I didn't know what else to say. ‘Yes, there is.’ ‘You’ll be okay then,’ she said.
“And you were?” Dr. Tait said. “Yes,” I said.
“She meant,” he said, “when she was falling there was no water.”
“No. There was nothing. But I didn’t know that until later,” I said. “She dropped out of school again at the end of the term and came down to visit for a few days. I asked her about it. She said, ‘I would never make light of how you feel, Ted, you know that. But when you fall, you know there’s a bottom. You’ll hit bottom, and, eventually, you’ll climb back up again. When I am falling, there is no bottom.’
“That’s all,” I said to Dr. Feight. “About the well - that’s all.”
“It’s enough,” Dr. Tait said. “We’ll talk about why you think farce is a way out next time.”
“I do think that,” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “I know you do.”
We went home, Uncle Albert and I. I made eggs and toast and spinach - the eggs over easy on top of the buttered toast with a tablespoon or two of cooked spinach on top of it all. Roz is a great believer in eggs and spinach, I’m not sure why; but they do go well together with enough salt and pepper. We both drank water; I wanted to save my Coke for later in the day.
Uncle Albert fell asleep in front of CNN. And I wrote this.
02.14.19
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* Not that I could even if I were trying. Not that I would try.
