!!!!!*****WORKING DRAFT*****!!!!!
“I’m going to try the ‘Introduction to Psychoanalysis’ course with Katy Winters,” Mike said as we traveled east along that unending stretch of western Kansas which if anything, was even flatter than before. “You studied Freud last year, right? What should I know about it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, for one thing, why are analysts in movies always asking, ‘How does that make you feel?’ What is it about feelings, why are they so concerned with that?”
I’d been thinking about this for months, both formally in class, and in life, talking with friends. “It’s pretty simple, really. Emotions drive what we think, what we believe, how we behave. Think of it this way. When I saw the war on TV, or civil rights protestors getting fire-hosed, my immediate sensation was, ‘That’s wrong!’ I felt anger. Then, I started to come up with, formulate, reasons why it’s wrong, using words to describe that emotion. Or take your reaction to another person. Usually, our first reaction is a feeling, ‘I like him,’ or ‘Ugh! He’s a creep.’ After that we begin to figure out why we feel that way, and start to explain the feeling.”
Mike stared at the unbending four-lane ahead. I couldn’t tell if he was listening. I turned the radio on, trying to find music hidden within the static.
“What are you doing? I can’t think with that noise!” He looked over at me. “I still don’t get it. How can talking about feelings help anyone change what they think, what they do?”
“Are you sure you want to be a psychiatrist? I’ll try again. First, you feel something, you have an attitude about a person or an idea. Then, you come up with a rationale to describe why you think that way, or why you did something. If you want to change what you are thinking or doing, you must start with the feeling that is driving the rational thought or behavior.”
Mike frowned. “OK, so…Love. Fear. Anger. Sadness. Joy. Gratitude. Those are what we really are, and words are just attempts by the verbal part of our brain to describe, to share those feelings with others, or make sense of them to ourselves?” He waited a beat, then went on. “So, can it be a two-way street? Emotions drive thoughts and actions, but can words change the emotions?”
Exasperated, I replied, “Listen, buddy, where have you been the past three years? Don’t you remember all those poems you wrote? And showed to me, sent to me?”
Shrugging his shoulder, he softly said, “Yeah?”
With a heavy heart, I slowly told him, “Those poems, those words, they’re part of why I fell in love with you.”
We both fell silent, the wind coursing through the open windows the only sound.
Finally, Mike decided, “I think I get it…you don’t love my words, you love the images they create. In you.”
“And you’ve always said, you don’t know what you think, what you feel, until after you read what you’ve written. The feeling creates the poem, then reading the poem tells you what you feel.”
Mike found the Motel 6 in Topeka without a hitch this time. Driving up, he pointed excitedly, “Look! A drive-in! Paul Newman movie – wanna see it?”
Being with someone continuously, I began to realise, is quite difficult. There’s only so far one can go just talking and sharing the same space. An isolated couple is an anomaly. Activity, friends, even a crowd of strangers, any outside influence helps smooth the ennui of habit and routine. Movies had always helped.
Afterwards, shuffling towards bed in the cramped motel room, I found myself saying, “After they robbed that train, and the sheriff…”
“Pinkertons”
Exasperated, I agreed, “OK, Pinkerton!” He couldn’t leave it alone, he always had to be right. “The Pinkertons followed them all day, and they came to that cliff. The only thing they could do was jump…”
“One of them, Robert Redford, didn’t want to…”
Closing my eyes in frustration, I went on, “He couldn’t swim, but he took the leap anyway. Then they hit the water, and it broiled and pounded all around them, taking them down the river, totally out of their control.”
“Yeah, that was the highlight of the movie for me, too. Funny, dramatic…” He was falling asleep He probably didn’t hear me when I said, “That’s the way I feel with you. You and I, we didn’t want to, but we jumped off the cliff together, not knowing what would happen. Now, we’re down in the river, it’s all around us, it’s bigger and stronger than us, and we don’t know where it’s going.” Seeing Mike’s slow and sonorous breathing, I knew he could not hear me. “I don’t think I want to be buddies with you all the way to Bolivia, to the end. I need to wash up on shore, and soon.”