Therapy

We decided to meet at Vista de Las Cruces, the school where I first taught, and walk through the state park from there. But first I showed V. around the deserted campus, pointing out the bronze plaque at the auditorium entrance that honors Ted Martinez, and the wall of colorful ceramic tile faces behind my former classroom, my long-ago vision of folk art by students. C. had parked a bit closer to the entrance to the park, and we set out from there, past the gate, through tall green grasses, and into an enchanted land. The slopes along the trails and creeks were already sparked with wildflowers: lupine, blue dick, bird’s eye gilia and hummingbird sage, and the grass seemed to shimmer in the sunlight, and at the crest of a hill we saw the sea on either side of us. Then we sat in a shining meadow eating walnuts and fruit, like women in a painting by Renoir.  

Afterwards we headed into town for a late lunch at a Chinese restaurant with big storefront windows, and the slant of light through the glass panes lent a surreal blush to everything. We ordered wonton soup, chow mein, and lollipop-sweet lemon chicken, feeling luxuriously present in our lives, aware of having recently entered a whole new chapter and determined to savor it all. We broke into our cellophane-wrapped cookies and laughed at our fortunes and lingered to talk over tea. And maybe because we were feeling so pleased with ourselves at that moment, it was easy for me to confess in an abstract way that I am still prone to spurts of striving but spinning my wheels, and that I lie awake and brooding in the nights judging myself very harshly. 

V. reminded me that to know how successful we truly are, she and I need only look at certain destinies that could have oh-so-easily been ours, and I joked about how low that bar was set. And C. said she was done evaluating herself and just intended to live her life, except she said it more poetically, as in excuse-the-expression-but-I-don’t-give-a-flying-fuck. And it’s funny, but her attitude was contagious, and I don’t know if it will last, but I felt happy and loved and oddly immune to that cold-hearted critic who lives in my head. Then I drove home along the 101 listening to cheesy rock ‘n roll with the volume up and the windows down.