Creatures of a Day: And Other Tales of Psychotherapy

by Irvin D. Yalom

  “Miffed? Why?” It was time to push myself into this monologue.

  “I’m old but not helpless. I can figure out how to contact you by myself.”

  “That’s all? That worth a miff? Go deeper.” I felt impelled to be more confrontational than is my wont.

  Rick’s cadence slowed. Maybe now, finally, he had taken note of me, though he still hadn’t really looked at me. “Well, I don’t know. Maybe miffed at her being just a tad too happy at the thought of possibly getting rid of me. Maybe I wanted her to be a little possessive. But I get your point. I know my getting miffed isn’t rational. After all, she and I are using this consultation with you to help us continue our work together. She’s not trying to get rid of me, and she said as much. But I’m leveling with you. That’s the way I felt. Miffed. I’m not going to hold anything back today. I want my money’s worth out of this investment. You know, with your fee and the airfare, this adds up.”

  “Tell me about your adjustment to the retirement home.”

  “In a minute.” Once again, he flicked me away. “First let me get on record and make it clear that Fairlawn Oaks is great. It’s a damn good organization, and if I were running it, I don’t think there’s much I’d change. My problems are all my own stuff—I acknowledge it. Fairlawn Oaks has it all. The meals are fine, and they offer a ton of terrific activities. The golf course is a bit tame, yet at my age it’s just right. But here’s the thing: all day long I am crippled with ambivalence. Every time I start to do something, my mind starts wanting to do something else. Now I don’t do schedules—at least not other people’s schedules—that’s not who I am. Schedules are for others. Why must I go to the swimming pool exercise class at four pm every day? Or to the current events class at ten am? Why must I put the door key in that pouch on the door every time? And why must I have meals at the same time every day? That’s not me. The real me, the real Rick Evans, reveres spontaneity.”

  He turned his head in my direction. “You went right from college to medical school, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And then into psychiatry, right?”

  “Yep.”

  “Well, I’ve had nine professions.” He held up nine fingers. “Nine! And did damn well in all nine. Started with nothing as a printer’s apprentice. . . . Then I became a printer . . . then started a magazine . . . then a publisher of several magazines . . . then head of a small textbook publishing company . . . then bought and built up a string of board and care places for the mentally disturbed . . . then ran a hospital, and then, believe it or not, took training as a counselor and went into organizational development work . . . and then CEO of two different companies.” He sat back in his chair looking satisfied. It was my turn to say something. I had no particular plan in mind but began responding anyway, hoping my muse would guide me.

  “A lot of different paths. Hard to register them all. Tell me, Rick—OK if we use first names? Call me Irv?”

  Rick nodded. “I prefer it.”

  “Rick, how do you feel now when you look back on your careers?”

  “Look, be assured that none of these moves was forced. I never failed with any of these careers. I just got fidgety after a while. I refuse to be locked into any way of life. I require change. Spontaneity. I repeat: spontaneity—that’s who I am!”

  “And now?”

  “Now? Well, that’s the whole point. Spontaneity, once a good thing, once my strength, my polestar, has now morphed into a monster. Look, here’s the picture: when I start to head off to some activity, be it fitness training, pool aerobics, current events, yoga classes, whatever, my mind starts rattling off other alternatives. I hear my inner voice asking, ‘Why this activity? Why not some other activity?’ I’m stuck in a logjam of indecision. And what happens? What happens is I end up doing none of these activities.”

  I checked into my own flow of thoughts. As Rick spoke, I thought of Buridan’s ass, an ancient philosophical paradox involving an ass placed between two equally sweet-smelling bales of hay, who starves to death because he can’t decide which one to choose. But I saw no benefit to Rick in speaking of this. I’d be just responding to his challenging manner and showing off my erudition. Then another thought occurred that might be more acceptable and more useful to him. “Rick, let me share something that’s just drifted into my mind.”

  I knew I was being a bit loose, but that often paid off—patients generally appreciate my sharing something of myself, and it usually works to accelerate more sharing. “Maybe it will be of interest. It’s an episode that occurred long ago. I wrote about it somewhere but haven’t thought about it in ages. One day, I noted that my eyeglasses weren’t functioning properly, and I paid a visit to my ophthalmologist, a much older man. After he tested my vision, he asked my age. ‘Forty,’ I responded. ‘Forty, eh?’ he said, and he took off his own glasses, wiped them carefully, and said, ‘Well, young man, you’re right on schedule. Presbyopia.’ I remember feeling very annoyed and wanting to say to him, ‘What schedule? Who’s on schedule? You or your other patients may be on schedule but not me! Not me! I’m different.’”

  “Nice story,” Rick replied. “I read it somewhere in one of your books. I get your point, but actually it’s not really my point. I already know the math. I’m seventy-seven, and we don’t need to waste time working on that. I’m not in denial anymore. Not only do I tell myself every day that I’m seventy-seven, but my one-note therapist keeps hammering it home. My unwillingness to confront my age was what made it so difficult to leave my home and move into Fairlawn. But I’ve moved on. I’m talking about something new.”

  Hmm, it was clear that sharing my eyeglasses story had not been a great idea. Rick was not someone with whom I could be loose and share associations that float into my mind. He was more invested in competing with me than being helped by me. I decided to keep a sharper focus.

  “Rick, earlier you said, ‘Spontaneity—that’s who I am.’”

  “That’s right. It’s my mantra. That is who I am.”

  “That is who I am,” I repeated. “If we transpose that statement, it becomes ‘If I am not spontaneous, I am not me.’”

  “Yes, I guess so. Sounds cute, I guess, but . . . your point?”

  “Well, that thought has dark implications. It’s a close cousin to saying to yourself, ‘If I am not spontaneous, I won’t exist.’”

  “I won’t exist as me, as the core person I am.”

  “I’m guessing it runs even deeper. It’s as though you believe your spontaneity wards off your death.”

  “I know these pronouncements are meant to be helpful, but I’m not getting it. You’re saying that? . . .” he held out his hands, palms facing me, fingers splayed.

  “I’m wondering if, at some deeper level, you might feel that giving up your spontaneity is risky, that it brings death closer. I mean, if we look at your situation rationally, we’d ask, ‘What’s the real threat in doing some things on schedule?’ At seventy-seven putting your keys in some designated place makes sense. I sure need to do that. And obviously it makes sense to go to exercise classes or current events discussion at a certain time because a group’s existence requires a designated time to get together.”

  “I’m not claiming that my thought is rational. I grant that it doesn’t make sense.”

  “But it does make sense if we assume it is powered by some deep, not entirely conscious fear. I think that being ‘on schedule’ symbolizes, to you, marching in lockstep with everyone else toward death. Fairlawn Oaks can’t help but be connected in your mind with the end of life, and your inability—or, rather, unwillingness—to engage in the program must be a form of unconscious protest.”

  “Pretty far-fetched. Sounds like you’re really stretching. Just because I don’t want to line up, towel in hand, to do water exercises with all the other old ninnies doesn’t mean that I refuse to accept my mortality. I don’t do lines. I’m
not about to get into any kind of line.”

  “I’m not getting into any kind of line because? . . .” I asked.

  “I designate lines; I don’t stand in them.”

  “In other words, I don’t get into lines because I’m special.”

  “Damn right. That’s why I told you about my nine careers.”

  “Stretching, expanding, actualizing yourself: all these endeavors seem right. They seem appropriate for a certain time of life. But perhaps they may not fit this time of life.”

  “You’re still working.”

  “So what questions do you have for me?”

  “Well, why do you work? Are you really in step with your age?”

  “Fair enough. Let me try to answer. We all face aging in our own manner. I know I’m very old. There is no denying that eighty is old. I’m working less—I see far fewer patients now, only about three a day, but I’m still writing much of the rest of the day. I’ll tell you the truth: I love what I’m doing. I feel blessed to be of help to others, especially others who are facing the issues I’m dealing with—aging, retirement, dealing with the death of a spouse or friends, contemplating my own death.”

  For the first time Rick did not respond but silently looked at the floor.

  “Your feelings about my answer,” I asked in a softer voice.

  “I got to hand it to you. You go right into the tough stuff. Death of friends, your own death.”

  “And your thoughts of death. Is it much on your mind?”

  Rick shook his head. “I don’t think about it. Why would I? Wouldn’t do any good.”

  “Sometimes thoughts enter the mind involuntarily in daydreams, for example, or night dreams.”

  “Dreams? I don’t dream much . . . none for weeks . . . but strangely I had two doozies last night.”

  “Tell me all you remember.” I picked up my notepad. Two dreams just before our session. I had a hunch these were going to be illuminating.

  “In the first one I was at a school playground with a big chain-link fence around the field—”

  “Rick, let me interrupt. Would you mind describing the dream in the present tense—as though you’re just now seeing it.”

  “Okay. Here goes. I’m in a school playground—maybe my junior high school field—and there’s a baseball game getting organized. I look around and see that everyone there is much younger. They’re all kids—adolescents—in uniform. I want to play—I really do—but I feel strange because I’m too big. Then I see the teacher. . . . He looks familiar, but I can’t place him. I start to approach him to ask what to do, and just then I notice another area of the playground where several older people—my age—are organizing another game—maybe golf, maybe croquet—not sure which. I start to join them, but I can’t get past the fence surrounding the ball field.”

  “Hunches about this dream, Rick? Tell me anything that comes to mind.”

  “Well, baseball. I used to love playing when I was young. My favorite sport. I was good at it. Shortstop with a helluva peg. Could have played college ball, maybe even pro, but I had to go to work. My parents had no money.”

  “Keep going. Say more about the dream.”

  “Well, kids were playing, and I wanted to play. But I’m not a kid anymore.”

  “Feelings about that? Or other feelings you had in that dream?”

  “Yeah, my therapist never fails to ask that question. I don’t recall any feelings. But let me try—happy when I first saw the ball game—that’s one feeling. And then some aching and bafflement when I saw I couldn’t play. If you want feelings, though, the other dream last night had some stronger feelings. Lots of aggravation and frustration. In that dream I was . . . I am in the bathroom looking at myself in the mirror, but it is all blurred, as though the mirror is steamed over. I have a spray bottle of cleaner, and I keep squeezing the last spurts in the bottle, and I keep rubbing and cleaning the mirror, but it just will not get clear.”

  “Isn’t it strange that you hadn’t dreamed for months before—”

  “I said ‘weeks.’”

  “Sorry, you haven’t dreamed for weeks, and then last night, the very night before we meet, you have these two strong dreams. It’s as though you dreamt them for our session today, as though your unconscious is sending us some clues to the mystery.”

  “God, the way you guys think—my unconscious sending mysterious messages to my conscious for my shrink to decode. You can’t be serious.”

  “Well, let’s examine this together. Think of the major problem you bring here, that you can’t adjust to your community, that you are shackled by alternative desires. That you end up frozen, not doing anything. Right?”

  “Yeah, I’m with you.”

  “Surely the first dream speaks to that. Keep in mind that dreams are almost entirely visual and convey meaning only through visual images. So look at the picture your dream offers of your life dilemma. You want to play baseball, the game you loved as a kid, the game you had great talent for, but you can’t join that game because of your age. There’s another game there for folks your age, but you can’t join that game because you can’t get past the fence around the ball field. So, you’re too old for one game and fenced out of the other. Right?”

  “Right. Yeah, yeah, I see your point. Well, perhaps it is saying I don’t really know my age. It’s saying I’m foolish by thinking that I’m young enough to play in the baseball game. I don’t belong there.”

  “And the other game?”

  “Behind that fence? That part’s not as clear.”

  “Still see the fence in your mind’s eye?”

  “Yep.”

  “Keep looking at it, and just let thoughts about that fence drift into your mind.”

  “Plain old chain-link fence. Used to look through them when I was a kid to watch the older kids playing ball. And oh, yes, we had a class B minor league team in our town, and there was a little slit in the fence in center field where we use to watch the games before we got chased away. Ordinary fence—see ’em everywhere.”

  “If that fence could speak to you, what would it say?”

  “Hmm, a little Fritz Perls technique, huh? I remember that from my counseling program.”

  “Right you are. Fritz knew a thing or two about dreams. Keep going. What might the fence say?”

  “Uh, damnedest thing happening.”

  “What?”

  “Well, I hear a tune playing in my mind right now. ‘Don’t Fence Me In.’ You know that song?”

  “I think I remember a bit of it.”

  “Here’s the thing. Last week that tune invaded my mind for hours, and I couldn’t get away from it. It just kept playing like background music. I tried to remember all the words but couldn’t and finally went to YouTube and found a video of Roy Rogers riding his horse, Trigger, and singing that song. Great lyrics! Then, when I saw a computer ad to get the melody of that song as the ring tone on my cell phone, I was tempted to order it and clicked on it. I nixed it when I saw they were going to charge some goddamned outrageous monthly fee.”

  “Remember some of the lyrics?”

  “You bet.” Rick closed his eyes and sang softly:

  Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above

  Don’t fence me in

  Let me ride through the wide open country that I love

  Don’t fence me in

  Let me be by myself in the evenin’ breeze

  And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees

  Send me off forever, but I ask you please

  Don’t fence me in

  “Great, Rick. Thanks. Lot of heart in your singing. Those lyrics—‘Don’t fence me in’—really do speak to your life predicament. And I get a kick out of thinking of you having a phone ring tone with that melody. I wonder if it would help.”

  “It sure
would keep my predicament front and center. No hints about the solution, though.”

  “Let’s turn to the other dream—the mirror that you kept cleaning? And the spray bottle’s last spurts? Any hunches?”

  Rick flashed a big smile. “You’re making me do all the work.”

  “It’s your dream. You’re the guy, the only one who can do it.”

  “Well, my image in the mirror is blurred. I know what you’re going to say.”

  “What?” I raised my chin.

  “You’re going to say that I don’t know myself, that my own image is blurred to myself.”

  “Yep, probably what I would say. And the last spurts?”

  “No mystery there. I’m seventy-seven.”

  “Exactly, you’re trying to get yourself into focus but can’t do it, can’t make the image sharper, and it’s getting late. I’m impressed by your effort in the dream and your effort in coming all this distance to see me. Seems as though there is a powerful desire within you to know yourself, to sharpen your focus. I admire that.”