The Reluctant Healer

by Andrew D. Himmel

  And I knew that Erica would find my parents to be limited, simple people, an unfair conclusion to reach, but I knew she would reach it all the same. Everybody would be misjudging everybody, and where did that leave me? Afterward, I’d have to explain everyone to everyone.

  We pulled into my parents’ driveway, and I was about to make some comment about the quaint charms of the simple ranch house I had grown up in, when I saw my parents standing on the front lawn, like two tall sentries surveying the property they had been assigned to guard. I had this fleeting thought that they looked like zombies, and what in the world were they doing standing motionless, side by side, as they watched us approach anyway?

  As I brought the car to a halt on the gravel driveway, my parents began to move slowly toward us. Then, they quickened their pace. Erica grabbed my arm while watching my parents approach, “Are those your parents?”

  Before I could answer, Erica began fumbling with the door handle in a frantic effort to get out of the car. She managed to shove the door open and almost fell onto the driveway. But she stood and waved her hands above her head, as if to hail people in the far distance, even though, at this point, my parents were only a few yards away.

  “Hi, hi, I’m Erica,” she said.

  I could do nothing, and what was I supposed to do anyway? Tackle Erica? Tell her she was being too effusive? I braced myself to watch my parents’ reaction to all of this. They broke into broad smiles and rushed toward Erica faster than she rushed toward them. The three of them fell into a group hug.

  I watched this as I got out of the car and opened the trunk to get our bags. I heard muffled exclamations. “I am so thrilled to meet you.” “This is really wonderful, dear.” “I’m so glad you could make it.”

  The three of them then walked up to the house, still talking excitedly among themselves.

  “Hey, Mom. Dad. What’s up?”

  My mother turned around briefly but did not break her stride toward the house. “Hi, sweetheart. We’ve made up your room. Just put everything down and join us in the den.”

  I slung Erica’s duffel bag over my right shoulder and my knapsack over my left, and I walked up the slight hill of the front lawn. As I climbed the steps to my room, I could hear breathless exchanges among my parents and Erica. Everyone was talking. Even my father. No one was dominating. And while I couldn’t quite make out the words, the voices were animated.

  I threw the bags on my bed and came back downstairs, where the three of them were examining, with terrific intensity, the model wooden ships that my father spent so many hours in the past few years building. They were, in truth, remarkable structures. I knew nothing of the complexity of these models, except that my father spent many hours hunched over his desk, cluttered with the paraphernalia of model ship building, gluing, measuring, caulking, and planking tiny pieces of wood, plastic, and metal.

  The three were staring at my father’s prized accomplishment, the King of the Mississippi, a gorgeous replica of the paddle wheel steamboat from the late 1800s. My father was explaining that before interstate highways, America used its large rivers for the transport of goods. Manufacturers originally shipped merchandise down the Mississippi, Ohio, and Missouri Rivers to the port of New Orleans, but the invention of the steam engine enabled merchants to ship goods upriver, against the stream. The most beautiful of these ships was the King.

  My father told Erica that he had spent hundreds of hours working with rosewood, mahogany, teak, and other exotic woods in constructing the King. My mother pointed out that the chrome, brass fittings, and ornaments were all meticulously researched and historically accurate. Erica wondered about life on the riverboats, the gamblers, the rough characters, the frontiersmen. The three of them stood there, face forward, not looking at each other but instead fixated on the King, trading observations and stories about life on the Mississippi.

  I huddled in among them, and I think I contributed to the conversation, although I can’t quite recall. The day merged with the evening, with no delineation among the ensuing stages of drinks, dinner, conversation. We talked about everything. Yes, the subject of healing came up, but that’s all it was. A subject. One that did not predominate but simply fit in with the stream of thoughts and ideas coursing through our evening. My parents were interested but not fascinated to the point of exclusion. And Erica was less interested in explaining her new path than she was in hearing about the intricacies of my father’s life insurance business, an occupation I had always dismissed as criminally dull and beneath my father’s abilities. But Erica showed me that I might have been wrong. Through her artful questioning, she brought out from my father something approaching the nobility of the profession.

  I once went to a wedding where the father of the bride gave a toast that I’m not sure anyone heard. He warned us that he was not going to be original, but he was going to forge ahead anyway. He said that the newlyweds were embarking on a wonderful journey, and there were so many milestones to anticipate. The first house. The first child. The first professional or creative accomplishment. And there was truth to the observation that a life without goals, without a distant aspirational path, would be a life unnecessarily limited. Dream and strive and reach. It’s all important, and it’s all well and good.

  But in all of the excitement and wonder about the future, he said, don’t discount the possibility that right here, right now, might be what is most important. Not what your talents and ambitions may someday achieve, but where your feet are planted now. Because if you can’t do that, if you can’t capture the immediacy and joy of the present moment, then you’re at the mercy of anticipation, with every anxious thought thrown to the future, robbing the present of its impact, and you’ll miss out on everything.

  12

  Street Practice

  Irelaxed a great deal after our weekend with my parents. Erica and I entered into a more harmonious stage of our relationship, although, in retrospect, I misjudged this as a new direction instead of the lull before the storm. Still, while it lasted, our attachment deepened.

  The irony of the ensuing months is that, while Erica became almost obsessively involved in further educating herself about the world of healing, she became less proselytizing toward me and toward everyone else we met. She confined her beliefs to her growing base of patients, and this base was growing quickly. She moved away from the hospital toward a private, office-based practice, in a small space she rented in the Flatiron District. I don’t know what she charged for her services, but judging by sheer quantity, her practice was thriving.

  I often visited Erica at her Flatiron office. While I waited for her, I would get glimpses of her patients, almost all of whom were upscale, welldressed professionals in their thirties and forties. They were devoted to Erica, lingering with her as they exited her office, wanting to absorb one last piece of wisdom before their sessions formally ended. I would catch disconnected phrases. “Just say the mantra.” “Breathe as we discussed.” “Balance your chakras.” “Bring the energy in.” On more than one occasion, I suppressed an uneasy belief that she was leveraging her social work license to transition her practice to a more mystical approach.

  Then, we would have dinner nearby, and after a full day of treating patients, Erica—while always animated—had no pressing need to discuss her views. I am sure that client confidentiality played some role, but it also struck me that she needed her patients for an outlet of her beliefs as much as her patients needed her services.

  This harmonious stage was punctuated by the occasional public intervention. Once, I convinced Erica to meet me at The Container Store, so that she could lend a “female” perspective to my purchasing decisions.

  I found the sterile diversity of the store pleasing and hypnotic, while Erica was sullen and bored. In the light fixtures aisle, a disheveled middleaged lady began ranting. “There is a hidden danger in these fluorescent bulbs,” she spoke out. “They must all come off the shelves.” She then began to shovel all of the odd-looking, cu
rly, fluorescent light bulbs off the shelves and into her cart. Store employees tried to calm and restrain her, but she was inconsolable. “Mercury! They all have mercury. What if the bulb cracks? Powerful waves of brain-damaging neurotoxins will sweep through the air.”

  While the rest of us watched, Erica stepped forward and placed her hand on the woman’s shoulder. The startled woman whirled around. “Just a few milligrams are enough to contaminate thousands of gallons of water. Just a few milligrams!”

  “I know,” Erica replied. “Mercury can impair cognitive ability, and it’s particularly damaging to children.”

  “Yes, yes, yes,” the woman replied. “Help me! Help me now. Everyone is just standing around, doing nothing.”

  “I want you to do something for me,” Erica said. “And then I very well may help you. I want you to close your eyes and say the word ‘Ha-Rem.’” The woman was quickly and surprisingly obedient and began repeating the word. Erica joined her. “Ha-Rem, Ha-Rem, Ha-Rem,” they both chanted. The woman then slumped down and sat on the floor, still with her eyes closed. Erica sat next to her, and their joint chanting began to trail off. Soon, they were both motionless and silent, while Erica held her hand.

  This development was far more startling than the initial outburst. The unsettling feeling was that one of us had stepped forward to cross the divide, which meant that there were those among us who could inhabit both worlds. Then, just when we were orienting ourselves to this changed circumstance, the woman opened her eyes and softly but menacingly said to Erica, “That was a trick, wasn’t it?”

  Erica was unoffended. “No, it was certainly not a trick.”

  “That was a trick, and you know it.” The woman stood up and walked out of the store. Erica rejoined me in the line, and once again, I had the peculiar feeling that shoppers were staring at me. Erica was comfortable in her role, but my discomfort isolated me, highlighted me. Still, the conclusion lingering in the air, shared by everyone, was this: She succeeded. She diffused the situation. The lunatic was gone. Normalcy was restored.

  Over time, I began to feel more comfortable in Erica’s presence when she engaged in her “street” practice. I can’t pinpoint the precise moment when I lost my sense of embarrassment. Perhaps it was when we were both traveling uptown on a First Avenue bus, and we were snarled in traffic on a hot day with no air-conditioning. The passengers on the bus were tense and vocal. Erica stood up, closed her eyes, and began moving her hands in symmetrical patterns, like a pantomime. She appeared to be pushing and rearranging objects, placing them in the proper order. She possessed a commanding serenity and seriousness of purpose. The voices quieted down to a murmur. No, the air-conditioning did not miraculously activate, but the traffic eased, and the air blowing through the open windows transformed our collective status to a tolerable setting. Erica sat down next to me, and I looked up with pride at the gawking passengers. What’s the problem? You’ve never seen the cosmological employment of energy channeling to calm tensions and ease traffic?

  On another occasion, a child was bellowing in a contortion of rage and pathos as her mother pushed her in a carriage through Central Park. Erica asked the mother whether she could give her child a “healing,” which would not involve any touching. The mother enthusiastically agreed, which was surprising in itself. Before Erica “did” anything, the child fell silent and reached with both arms toward Erica, straining against the carriage straps. Erica kneeled down and asked the child to breathe in slowly through her nose and exhale through her mouth, slowly, three times. The child was delighted to comply and engaged in an exaggerated display of noisily sucking in air and blowing it out, with her lips pushed forward in an extravagant O shape. She began to laugh hysterically, and this by itself was endearing, although Erica seemed annoyed. The mother was thrilled, and Erica gave the mother her card. I wondered, not for the first time, whether Erica made daily jaunts through the city, approaching strife and discomfort in all of its various forms, lending her assistance and then proffering her business card. Ambulance chasing for the new age.

  13

  One Portion of Kabbalah

  The most surprising aspect of our “harmonious” stage was the frequency of our visits to my parents. They became our closest friends, a development that caught me by surprise. Typically, we met them in Garrison, but they occasionally came down to Manhattan to visit, something they rarely did during my “single” days. When they saw us in the city, we seldom engaged in any particular activity, like visiting museums or seeing a Broadway show. Instead, we simply had dinner together and engaged in conversation.

  My father sensed that Erica was lonely, her relationship with me notwithstanding. How can you generate a circle of friends with a similar view of the world? She had her patients, and she was beginning to consult with other mystics and healers, meeting them frequently. My impression was that these outings were serious, meaningful, but perhaps joyless.

  In a rare enlargement of one of our weekend dinners, my parents invited their neighbors, Ephraim and Wendy Epstein, to join us. I never particularly cared for them. Maybe it was the fierce exertion of mental energy Ephraim brought to the most conventional ways of thinking and the fawning support always provided by his wife. He was a lawyer, and while not a litigator, he sought out arguments in an unsubtle manner, usually leaving his fellow conversationalists tongue-tied. Afterwards, in piecing together the train of his logic, I was always struck by how he managed to marshal an articulate discourse in defense of shallow insights.

  So, of course, the subject of Erica’s healing came up, which Ephraim found especially provocative. “Well, I’m sure this doesn’t exactly apply to you,” he stated, looking at Erica, “but there is a disturbing trend which I’ll call the ‘spiritual but not religious’ movement. This is something of an escape. Many young people reject the rigors of an established religion and instead manufacture their own bridge to God. It’s convenient and selective, but ultimately, it’s a cop-out.”

  This commentary, issued in polite tones, caused me to wince, but something about the social setting replaced the immediacy of anger with the sense that I should be angry. Still, I felt I needed to respond, not necessarily to meet the logic but to prevent an ensuing silence, which itself would confer legitimacy on Ephraim’s remarks. I glanced at Erica, who was apparently untroubled by the comments, which I found surprising, given that for all intents and purposes, she had just been insulted.

  My father filled the void. “All religions are manufactured,” he said shakily. I knew that even this simple pushback was difficult for him, and he glanced upward, as if to seek further guidance. He then turned toward Ephraim.

  “All religions are manufactured,” my father repeated. “I’m not sure any of us are qualified to measure their validity.”

  “I have a few simple guidelines for just that kind of evaluation,” Ephraim said. “Has the system of belief stood the test of time? Has it inspired great art and literature? Does it require from its adherents a rigorous system of observance, attitudes, and behavior? Or is the system of belief the product of choosing items from a Chinese menu? You know, I’ll have one portion of Kabbalah, please, with a side order of Yoga, and could it be delivered to me in accordance with the principles of feng shui? You can simply make the stuff up as you go along.”

  “But all you’re really doing,” my father said, “is comparing one madeup system of belief to another.” He allowed a faint pugnacity to settle in to his voice. “And as far as inspiration is concerned, maybe you’re confusing causation with correlation.” Here, he cast a protective glance toward Erica. “Religions and beliefs, they evolve, Ephraim. By your logic, history would have dismissed Christianity as a conveniently selective revision of Judaism.”

  Ephraim sat back comfortably. He had navigated these waters before.

  “I have no problem with religions refining their doctrines through trial and error,” Ephraim replied. “The process itself plays out over time, but the goal is one of enlightenment
and purpose and meaning. Today, the salient characteristic of the ‘spiritual’ movement is one of convenience, and it is overwhelmingly narcissistic. It is self-obsessed, self-referential, and devoted to the grand doctrine of feeling connected. There is no higher purpose, no theological devotion.”

  This went back and forth for some time, and my father doggedly stood his ground. During the exchange, I frequently glanced at Erica and my mother to gauge whether they would join in. Under normal circumstances, neither of them would have been able to resist the urge to participate. But at the moment, they were content to allow my father to shoulder the burden. And I suspect that they were less interested in the course of the debate than in granting my father the space to demonstrate solidarity.

  I tried to link my distaste for Ephraim with a rejection of his comments, but I did question, not for the first time, the nature of Erica’s path. Was this, in fact, a religious journey? A spiritual quest? Was it based on some realm of science, even if not Western based? Was it intended to heal specific ailments? Or were her goals loftier? It could have been a relatively simple matter for me just to talk this through with Erica, but I never wanted to.

  And this approach kept the peace for a while. Over time, though, Erica became gradually more insistent that I understand more about her path. Occasionally, she would ask me to read excerpts from the many books she read, and I would usually decline, stating that I read so much at work that I couldn’t activate my brain to read at night. This had the benefit of being somewhat true. An unfortunate by-product of my years as a litigator, where reading was devoted to the task of ferreting out the flaw, was that I lost the simple joy of reading for pleasure.