The Switching/Yard

Shrink

59 Shrink There is no question that there is an unseen world. The problem is, how far is it from Midtown and how late is it open? —Woody Allen I tell him the unseen world is dragging me down, sort of like eating a whole rack of ribs at one sitting. I hate the heaviness of getting up in the morning, but I like biting the bones. He says: You want success, but you refuse to suck up to the people you hate. That’s it, I say. He’s brilliant, but sometimes it doesn’t matter what he says, just that there’s somebody who can hear the dark wildness. You want to be loved and adored, he says, but you feel horrible guilt for wanting it. What does he do with what he’s seen— all the hearts splitting, the rantings, the fright of it? Think of antidepressants as supertankers— they can’t turn on a dime, he says. I love it when he uses metaphors. I see what you’re saying, I say. This is all about social contracts, he says. Sometimes he talks about his life: You remind me of my son, he says, he needs a lot of room. We went looking for colleges for him and I knew he needed to be by the ocean— a city college would just close him in. He needs the air, the open sky. 60 I want to cry at his tenderness. I leave the office in love with the raw body, loving the moving sea, the sweet sadness of the wrecking ball in all of us. ...