2001-06-30 - 10:29 a.m.

My friends and I are together for yet another living room chat, only this time it�s different. It�s time, and we all know it. We have all reached that point, we are all 25ish, in the prime our lives, and we are out in the world. There is work to be done; no more hypothesizing, no more gathering of information, no more putting off this business of making our marks in the world. We must take up the burdens of this generation or leave the task to someone else.

No longer do I want to read books, watch movies or listen to the voices of the world. I want to find my voice and spread it throughout the world! I want to go up to people and tell them, I have something to say, and tell it to them. I have wisdom; I�m not sure what it is but it�s in there somewhere! I want to show them the path!

Ah, but it�s so hard, so hard, that sometimes I just want to give up. At critical points, I lose my strength. Up on the rooftops, gathering with those who understand me, it all seems so easy, so obvious. And then the time comes and I am a frightened child again.

I am a swimmer who stand out on the beach and imagines how great a feat it would be to swim across the ocean. I imagine myself coming across to the other shore and showing people, yes, it can be done, it is only a matter of willpower! And I throw off my clothes and dive into the water, and as the water reaches my ankles, I think, yes! I am doing it, see how powerful I am! And my legs slosh through the water, and I go on and tell myself I am strong. And then it gets deeper and deeper and now I�m in over my head, and suddenly I realize I am not as strong as I thought, I want to turn back, but I look back and the water�s nowhere to be seen, and whichever way I go it will be a struggle. So I steel myself and plunge ahead, because it�s the only thing to do, and maybe I�ll gain my sea legs yet, if only I can reach the halfway point then the struggle will be over, there�ll be nothing left to do but to finish it off and I�ll be victorious.

I realize as I look back on all these pages, after all these revelations and exaltations, that still I have accomplished nothing. After all the grand ways of looking at life, after feeling I can take life by the throat, I still have not taken life by the throat. Some days I feel I have discovered the meaning of life; other days I see I have learned nothing; and each day I wake up and a new battle must be fought.

I want to express, I want to interact. But I am afraid. All my life I have been hiding in myself. It is comfortable in here, but lonely. I have been looking out the window of myself, waving from afar but never shaking hands. I have never had the courage to let people see who I am.

-

The blank page stares up at the young girl as she awaits her next instruction.

�For the next picture, I would like you to draw something that made you feel mad, sad or bad,� I say, trying to breathe life into my cold script. �You will have ten minutes to complete this drawing. I will tell you when you have two minutes left, and then again when you must stop. Any questions?�

The girl, a black girl about 10 years old, looks up at me for a moment, her eyes imploring me not to make her do this, then dart back down to this isolated desk in a far corner of her school.

�It�s gonna make me feel sad,� she says.

I want to reassure her somehow, but I cannot. I must be the detached observer. The goal of this project, an art therapy research project I have stumbled onto for a few extra bucks on my week off, is to watch dozens of elementary school students draw pictures and take notes, and see what they come up with. No interaction is allowed beyond the bare minimum. My job for these four days is simply to take them from their classes, read them their instructions, and record their every movement, drawing, color choice, facial expression.

So I say �Well�,� and trail off. And she picks out a pencil and prepares to draw, images of classroom teasings that haunt her young life. I can only stare down at my paper, writing down exactly what she said, and checking off �sad� and �anxious� on my chart. I hope that by going through this exercise she can, in some way, unlock those dark chambers in her mind where she keeps those feelings hidden away, that this cold procedure and blank page can somehow ease her burden, no thanks to me, the cold, judging eye in the corner.

-

Nearly all of us, perhaps, have some dark memory, some unadmitted weakness, that hides in the recesses of our minds, ignored but silently influencing our actions. Mine are no more compelling then yours. But I will commit mine to this blank page, computer screen, whatever, as my own art therapy. I will invite you into the rooms of my mind and give a few dark corners a good airing, so you can take a look around if you wish, and those frightening corners won�t seem so scary anymore.

You will give me strength to face the world. I will show you my self, my hidden corridors, and I will see that it is nothing to fear. You will see my hand shaking, my nervous glance, and tell me it is okay. Won�t you?

Before I can be strong, I must root out the source of my weakness.

I need love � it is the only thing I need. Beyond it all else is trivial. If I am with you, I want to do whatever you want to do and nothing else. I want to be whoever you want me to be, so I will mold myself in your image. I am at your disposal. All I ask is your approval, or anything but your rejection.

How did I get this way? How did anyone get the way they are? Perhaps I was born this way; most likely the events of my life have brought out the tendencies I nurtured as a child.

You are welcome to see the corridors and closets of my mind. Are there any answers in here? Perhaps you will help me decide.

Here I am. I am a frightened child. The world is menacing. I lie in my bed, staring up at the top bunk where my brother is sleeping, listening furtively as my parents wander up to bed, afraid of going back to sleep for all the nightmares that await me.

Here I crawl into bed with my mother. I will lie here for just a few minutes as she sleeps. I stare off at the wall and the simple white bookshelf beside the bed, filled with old books � a tattered Roget�s Thesaurus, the bright yellow paperback of Erma Bombeck�s At Wit�s End � each in its own spot, each etched in my memory after countless hours of gazing.

Here I am, walking up the stairwell in first grade. The other kids are yelling the usual catcalls � Nerd. Geek. I am awkward, silent, the object of ridicule.

Here I am sneaking inside through the sliding-glass door, hoping my mother does not catch me. I am tired of following my brother around the neighborhood, trying to be inconspicuous; I am not having fun. I long to sit inside and watch TV. My mother finds me and sends me back outside. �Pleeeease,� I whine.

Here I sit out by the apple tree behind our house, the bumpy lawn littered with apples, green or rotten. I stare off at nothing, just sit there and wonder if I will ever have friends.

And so I build a shell around myself, become my only friend, though deep down I loathe myself, believe that those kids must be right. And I lock up all my feelings inside myself, afraid of exposing myself to the world.

These are a few of the corridors of my mind. What value do they hold? Why do I keep them around, the relics of a forgotten time? But is it forgotten? Is there a piece of that frightened me I carry with me yet, even as I push it further from my conscious mind? Am I the same person as ever, or someone new?

Perhaps we can never become someone new. Our bodies are recycled; none of the old cells that expressed my physical being as a child still remain today. They have all been flushed out of me, peeled away. But their record has been retained in the hallways of my mind; the existence of that young child still exists somehow, hovering over me like a ghost.

I can no longer push away that ghost, keep it hidden in the closet away from view. Ignoring it will not send it away; it will not be denied. I will invite it out, no longer despised in the corner, but a member welcome to the feast of life.

Hello, little me. How are you today?

(A boy sits alone at a dinner table in the early 1980s, orange wallpaper, hanging lamp adorned with cherries and pears, assorted knicknacks resting along the bay window, a plate in front of him piled with cold mashed potatoes, green beans and chicken. )

Little me: Fine. (He mashes the potatoes through the slits in his fork.) Well, was there something you wanted to tell me?

Big Me: I�m not sure�

LM: Well, why�d you get me out, then?

BM: I guess I wanted to tell you that it�s okay, and that you�re okay.

LM: Oh. Thanks. Is that supposed to make it easier?

BM: I guess.

LM: Cause school is starting in a few days and I really don�t want to go.

BM: Well, I guess it can�t fix those sort of problems.

LM: Can it stop my nightmares?

BM: No.

LM: Then what? You�re supposed to tell me that even if nobody likes me, at least you like me? That at least my future self would be friends with me? That�s comforting.

BM: No. Wait. I want to tell you that it will get better. You will have friends. You were asking about that, just now, under the apple tree, weren�t you?

LM: Then does life get any easier?

BM: Well, not really. I still don�t know how to do much, how to express myself, how to deal with people. I�m still afraid of them, I�m still terrified of rejection, only now I feel I have the courage to try again, to be a child again and learn how lot to be too afraid.

LM: Oh, good. And do you have a job?

BM: Well, I�ll be editing math problems next week.

LM: Oh, great. And do you have a girlfriend?

BM: No, but I saw this one girl� just a couple weeks ago� and I wrote a poem to this girl once but didn�t give it to her.

LM: Oh. So what do you do all the time?

BM: I don�t know. I go for walks. I type things out.

LM: And you come looking around in your head for things to occupy yourself? You talk to yourself? You�re still living in your head, like I always do? Why don�t you go out and do something with yourself, instead of holing up inside this head all the time?

BM: I�m trying, I�m trying! But every time I think I�m out I realize I�m still inside.

LM: Well, don�t go looking to me for help. Can I go now?

BM: Yeah, scram, kid.

(Kid leaves.)

He wasn�t the real me anyway. I can�t quite get at him, but I can sense him in here somewhere, watching me, guiding me, hoping this new me can get the old me out of his shell.

But he�s not here at all. He hasn�t been stored away in some closet to be taken out later, poked over and exorcised from my self. He�s scattered in the recesses of my mind, absorbed into a million little pieces of me, exerting his invisible influence on the new me. He and a million other former selves, each distinct from the previous selves but informed by all of them. Each new self is awash in possibility, but tied down by the chains of the past. We must acknowledge those chains if we are to move behind them, accept them as valid, legitimate, learn to love them. Slowly, I am learning to love myself, and that will teach me to love others.

-

Oh yeah, and Dr. Bob was right. The answer was A.

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