“What's that gorilla doing up there?”
“That's a self-image. Betty sees herself as a gorilla. She's working it through.”
“Is that a good one or a bad one?”
I came to my first group early. I'm sitting near a pleasant looking man who's explaining things to me.
“It was good at the time,” he said. “It doesn't work for her now. It helped her when she was a kid. She had to baby sit her two brothers and cook and clean. It helped to think she was a gorilla. Made her feel strong and capable.”
“Did she know she saw herself as a gorilla?”
“No, that's why we come here – to find these things out – to be aware. Otherwise we go around uncomfortable-like. Gorillas don't deal well with intimacy issues, except with other gorillas. She was having trouble with her husband. She didn't know she was talking to him and thinking in gorilla”.
I could swear I'm in Sardi's, the famous theatre restaurant. The room has an air of quiet elegance. The wall-to-wall carpet is deep red. The tablecloths are of white linen and the crystal glasses and silverware have the initials FFT. There are rows and rows of framed illustrations covering the walls.
“Oh,” I said. “I see.” I sink slowly back into my chair. I wonder what kind of animal I am. Maybe a giraffe? But giraffes don't seem to be angry and frustrated and nervous, like I feel. That's probably why they have such a long neck – to keep their head above their feelings.
A waiter and waitress scurry back and forth. Our table's not quite ready. The crystal water glasses, and the water, have yet to be set; and one rose, to be placed in the center. There're small tables along the sides of the walls. I guessed that's in case of overflow.
I ask the nice fellow if he knows some of the illustrations.
“Those are inner images,” he said.
“Pardon me?”
“We experience the world indirectly. We perceive images of it, of other people, and ourselves. Those on the wall over there? They're self-images. They reflect our inner perceptions of self. We can also project these images outward – onto the world. Mostly they are different versions of prince and princess, and their opposite - variations of paupers and frogs. The others are parent images: a wide array of good and bad mother or good and bad father.”
“Does that mean there's a right and a wrong way of seeing things?
He said, “Oh no, everything is accepted here.”
“Then why do you call them, ‘good and bad'?”
“It's short hand really; it's one of those paradoxes.”
“Pair of boxes?”
“Yes…well sort of … eh…no.”
“There sure are a lot of them.”
Five more people arrive. That makes eleven. The Doctor sits in a chair outside the circle of the table. There're no menus. I'm told that the Doctor uses all the ingredients of a problem and creates a dish impromptu- something nourishing. The secret being that there's something healthy in everything.
The first person to share is the fellow I had been speaking with. His name was Max and he's a professor. Max had a dream that he could fly. He found himself flying up and around the main floor of Saks Fifth Avenue. The Doctor's sympathetic and warm, encouraging Max to talk further. The gist of it is that Max has a wife in real life and she spends a lot of money. She goes overboard and runs into debt. Max is wishy-washy about talking to her about it. The Doctor says Max's dream is an unconscious attempt to try and resolve the situation. He's working on it. But he's flying around the issue.
The Doctor rushes to the kitchen with the ingredients of avoidance, fear of confrontation, and negotiating skills. In a couple of minutes he returns. He sets before us a piping hot dish in the middle of the table. I assume this is to be the main course. It's called– Sense of Self Soufflé. Light and airy like flying, with substantial protein at the same time.
“How might Max's dream pertain to our own situation?” the Doctor asks. He doesn't call on me, thank goodness. He doesn't call on Nan either.
Nan hardly speaks. The Doctor explains to us that she had been very angry with her family. She had felt her sister was getting all the attention. When she was about five years old, she went to the circus. She became enchanted with a sword swallower there. From that day on, she pretended she was a sword swallower. Her anger became the sword she turned inward. Speaking would've meant death. She remains silent. She found a way to stay within the security of her family, and deal with her rage at the same time.
There's an illustration of the sword swallower on the wall, just above where the Doctor is sitting. Max was relating a dream - Nan lives a dream. This is like theater. I'm not sure I understand it, but – oh here comes a side dish: Vegetables Flambé. It's festive and showy much like a circus, in fact.
The Doctor says there's just time enough for another woman, Davida, to talk. She wants to share the fantasy she had, while free-associating on the couch. I can't imagine being relaxed enough to lie on the couch. Davida scared both the Doctor and herself. She saw her mother coming towards her. The mother was getting bigger and bigger - filling up the room…and then took the form of a spider. That would make Davida – a daughter spider.
Davida is a grade school teacher. She and the Doctor explore how she might act with her children in class if she identified with the image. She might be controlling as if catching them in her web rather than creating a climate of trust in which they felt safe to explore and learn. If she projects the spider image onto the classroom, she might feel caught in her job as a teacher and resentful and want to quit even. Whatever the dynamics, a spider isn't warm and fuzzy although Davida seems like an interesting and attractive person.
I find out later that Davida had been a girlfriend of my husband's. I think my giraffe is a much better choice than a spider. Perhaps my husband would agree.
Cotton candy's for dessert. I guess sticky candy is to be like the makings of a spider's web. People talk about their control issues and about trying to catch other in their way of seeing the world – their “web”. I don't join the discussion. I'm overwhelmed: gorillas and other animals, insects, levitation through department stores, circus acts, all this going on inside the most normal looking people. Show-biz pales in comparison.
We‘re almost at a close, when Sid, the foot doctor, insists on reading his latest poem. He and his wife continue their ways – screaming and yelling. He yearns for harmony, which he fulfills in his poems. He read it:
“I run towards you but you walk away.
I stand in silence
I stand and pray
That there will be a “we” again
I yearn for that day.”
It was good for a foot doctor. Maybe someday I'll write a poem about Sully's big toe. Poems of Perilous Podiatry!
The waiters picked up the prix fixe at each person's setting. Everyone gets up to leave. I'm grateful the Doctor ignored me. I couldn't have stood the attention. I feel energized by the others, and I enjoyed my meal. And no calories.
Going out the door, I trip over something shaggy that yelps. “Oh, I'm so sorry,” I said. I asked Max, “What's that dog doing in the corner by the door?”
“That's one of the Doctor's images, - a raggy shaggy dog,” said Max.
“But it's real”.
“Yes.” Max said, “Sometimes images and reality are one and the same. That's the paradox”. “The idea,” said Max, “is to create a strong sense of self and change the images that are no longer working for us.”
“But if the image and reality are the same?”
“It can make it more complicated or it can make it easier. That's the fun of it.”
I wonder whether I'd ever be able to put my feelings and ideas into those pair of boxes.
“You're coming back, aren't you?” Max asked.
“I guess so,” I said. “What do the initials FFT on the silver and glassware mean?”
“It's the name of our group: ‘Food For Thought.' Hurry of you'll miss the elevator.”