TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:
CLIENT: I saw the boy and his mom at the Y, and I felt like I'm never going to be separated I'm never going to get distance from them because I cared so much about them that first time, so they're haunting me or something, or I'm haunting them. [Pause: 0:00:49.5 to 0:01:12.8] I felt this very disgusting superiority when I saw them. I think I felt… I think I had there was a lot of judgment going on with the mom. It didn't feel good.
[Pause: 0:02:06.5 to 0:02:55.4]
CLIENT: Got anything?
THERAPIST: That's a funny question.
CLIENT: Well, I don't have anything more about that.
THERAPIST: I mean, I have some views. Your original association with them, I think was huh, thinking that's Jay's wife and son, and I wonder if it's something about that.
CLIENT: Mm-hmm.
THERAPIST: Or not having time with them. I don't know if he's still resentful or -
CLIENT: I think um, -
THERAPIST: anxious some way and that's… Yeah? [0:03:56.2]
CLIENT: Well, I think it's more…
THERAPIST: Mm-hmm?
CLIENT: I don't know, I guess it's piecing together the fact that you work with a lot of students and all my intimate knowledge of Jeremy and his childhood and his school life and his mom's role. Rose is an incredible parent who is very who values individuation a lot, and I don't think she was a helicopter parent at all, but I do think that her approach to Jeremy's diagnosis of ADD and IQ tests and his difficulty in high school and his difficulty in college, and like letting him stay home from school when he was so nervous because he didn't finish his homework or something like that. I think that's a lot of judgment there on my part, almost of just like okay, you're done with him and now I have to sort of deal with the ramifications of the way that his difficulties were treated at home. [0:05:43.2]
THERAPIST: Mm-hmm.
CLIENT: And yet, I don't think I could have done any better of a job than Rose did. Anyway, I see that in this mom. I see something that makes me think like boy, free yourself, like go, go a little bit away. They just seem too on top of each other for a good thing to happen.
THERAPIST: And that was the way it was with Jeremy and his mom?
CLIENT: No.
THERAPIST: I see.
CLIENT: I think that could have been the way it was but it wasn't. [0:06:45.5]
THERAPIST: Mm-hmm.
CLIENT: I mean, I also don't know what it was like when he was like this boy's age, but I know that his mom has struggled a lot with like whether to intervene and feeling always like she needs to intervene, and I don't think Jeremy benefited from that.
THERAPIST: As I'm thinking about what you're saying, so she sort of struggled around how much to make him kind of adhere to whatever norms there were about what he needed to do.
CLIENT: Mm-hmm.
THERAPIST: And how much she should kind of let him do him his way or relax sort of what the norm for…
CLIENT: Yeah. I think it's hard because a lot of what he struggles with, like she has some aspect with that and maybe I don't know. I think they've had a hard time when he was growing up but they're doing okay now. Maybe it's maybe it's almost like my fair of raising a child like that, and like seeing this mom's decisions and seeing how hard it must be to make any decisions about any of your children, and especially maybe when your child needs or doesn't fit in the way that you might hope he or she does. [0:08:39.6]
THERAPIST: Mm-hmm.
CLIENT: I've always been a little bit nervous about what traces of Jeremy are going to show up in our children. [Pause: 0:08:50.7 to 0:09:19.1] But that's only part of it, part of the story. Like, there are going to be some pretty incredible traits that show up. And I guess one benefit is that Jeremy has experience with himself and hopefully he'll be there too, like if he doesn't die. I don't worry about that too much but I do.
THERAPIST: And that was a view as far as your kids go, a bit more overwhelmed and unsure? [0:10:36.0]
CLIENT: Mm-hmm.
THERAPIST: Having to know certain things.
CLIENT: And also like not as great of a match maybe, where a kid like Jeremy, the way that Jeremy would be a great match, though I guess I'm a good match for Jeremy.
THERAPIST: Something seems to be working.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: I'm going to change the subject.
THERAPIST: Sure.
CLIENT: The 60th birthday celebration was so magical.
THERAPIST: Oh, wow.
CLIENT: And I'm thinking about it in the context of like why I feel like why I want you to think I'm special. [0:11:43.7]
THERAPIST: Mm-hmm.
CLIENT: But Jeremy and I had a really nice chat on Friday. I was feeling very sad and missing you a lot and um, in exchange for an hour and a half foot rub, Jeremy told me about his therapy session that day and then asked me about mine, which he doesn't do very often, I think because he doesn't want to be asked about his.
THERAPIST: Let me make sure I got the comments right here. So, you gave him the foot rub in exchange for him telling you about his therapy session, which he generally doesn't want to do, and which also prompted him afterwards, to ask you about yours. Okay.
CLIENT: Yeah. So that was like so great. That was perhaps the only… the only activity that completely neutralized my sadness, with like hearing about his relationship with Alice. I don't know, it makes me feel less of like I'm less in a vacuum. [0:13:17.0]
THERAPIST: Good. How so?
CLIENT: Well, I think at one level I could sort of just listen to the story and like vicariously live through it, and imagine myself there. I wouldn't have to do the hard work of like remembering and talking and experiencing the sad feelings. I just had to listen. I think on another level it made me feel kind of special about our relationship and um, I don't know, that superiority again, I guess. But it was just like I don't know, sometimes when you don't have anything to compare yourself with, you feel very unsettled, and then if you just find anything to compare yourself with. [0:14:50.9]
THERAPIST: Yeah, it's pretty anxious to be in a vacuum I think.
CLIENT: Yeah. And then it was just nice to tell him the parts about you that I like, and I haven't really done that and that was really nice. He also shared things about his session that seemed really important and great and hard, like wanting to find more acceptance and awareness of himself and like why he feels like he doesn't he's not being productive when working on music, when that's really all he wants to do and yet he's still not productive, and how hours will go by and he'll notice eventually, that he's feeling terrible and in a bad mood, and he didn't know how that happened or when it happened or why. [0:16:22.5]
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: He hasn't really like talked through that too much with me.
THERAPIST: Mm-hmm.
CLIENT: And it seems like they have a good thing going, so that was just nice, to hear about it. So anyway, it came up that I really wanted you to feel like I was special and Jeremy was surprised at that because he doesn't see any he doesn't feel that way at all about most people, like he doesn't care if anyone thinks he's special other than his family and me and his dogs.
THERAPIST: Mm-hmm.
CLIENT: We don't have dogs, but we talk about them as if we do. And I, I didn't like, first of all, I didn't think that that would be something that everyone wouldn't share, and it made me realize how fiercely I feel about feeling special, like with almost everybody.
THERAPIST: Hmm. [0:17:45.2]
CLIENT: So this so I think part of it is that I've been made to feel special so much and this 65th birthday celebration was like a perfect example. My mom's parents were up from Kentucky, my so like my grandfather has a PhD in entomology and is a Hindu priest, and my other grandfather, the one who is the vet, has a PhD in history and is like a Latin scholar. You have all these people gathering together to celebrate my dad, who has a PhD, and is like the most incredible, like devotee of his family. It was kind of like that wedding dream, like the positions of the planets on the day and time that my dad was born were looked up and there is a big ceremony to pray to those planets in the positions in which they were, and that's sort of a common thing, to acknowledge celestial bodies and their importance in our lives.
THERAPIST: Mm-hmm. [0:19:25.6]
CLIENT: And there were some aspects of the puja puja is a religious ceremony. There are some aspects of the puja that none of us have ever seen, and then there are some aspects that like my parents do every month, like read a story full of lessons. Parable? I don't know what the word is. No.
THERAPIST: So, they read, it's like a parable.
CLIENT: These are stories that have like lessons for them.
THERAPIST: Oh, okay. Parable, sounds to me like one word for that, but maybe you're thinking about a different one.
CLIENT: Mm-hmm, I was.
THERAPIST: Fables?
CLIENT: Fables, maybe fables. So reading these stories and like preparing some offerings in the form of fruits and like a huge feast for lunch and sort of singing and clapping and adorning statutes of all the different gods. So there is like all of that, which I know very well, and then there is this amazingly intricate magical other part where there is like 60 steel cups with each one had a betel nut leaf on it and each one of those had an apple on it, and it was supposed to be a coconut, but apples made more sense in this country. And then each one of those was like prayed to, so all 60 of those, and then we spent a lot of time preparing all of this the night before. Jeremy and I made bowls of colored rice, six bowls, and then there were so like red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple rice, and then like bright orange and purple flowers, and my dad was adorned with a garland made out of these flowers by my mom, and this is supposed to be like a second wedding of theirs, like because no one lives until 60. It's like a big fucking deal and my mom wore red and my dad gave her this gold and black necklace that's very that's a traditional aspect of the marriage, like which I got on my wedding, so this is like her second one.
THERAPIST: Mm-hmm. [0:22:18.9]
CLIENT: So there's all this colored rice and flowers and like 60 apples, and then 64 betel nut.
THERAPIST: Separate from the ones in the cups?
CLIENT: Separate from the ones in the cups. Those were betel nut leaves, these are the actual nuts.
THERAPIST: Ah-huh, yeah.
CLIENT: And like fire and all the different gods, and then mountains and mountains of fruits and sweets that people had brought, and there were like 50 people that showed up. People had written poems, and one of our good family friends sang. Then there was like this huge feast that my grandmother and my mom cooked, and that was like part one, and part two is happening in March, which is like in this art gallery in Vassar, and we're going to Jeremy and I and my brother are going to play a little bit and there's going to be a jazz pianist, and then there's going to be Indian classical musicians and folks musicians, and food and wine and beer. People are bringing written thoughts and it's part of a surprise that we're going to compile for my dad. [0:23:51.3]
THERAPIST: Mm-hmm.
CLIENT: And like how could I not feel special when this is the way that my dad's 60th birthday is celebrated, and there have been countless celebrations like this. Most of the time, I was also thinking about like how I was going to tell you about it, and that was another aspect of the weekend that was kind of nice actually, because it made me feel like I had an anchor here and that I was okay leaving and coming back here, and that I wasn't like completely, 100 percent in the most comfortable place on earth at home. It's like oh, there's like some pretty comfortable spots in Waltham too. But it also felt kind of bad because you're not you're temporary and it's so asymmetric. But I would say that mostly, it felt really great.
THERAPIST: Mm-hmm. [0:25:27.8]
CLIENT: I think I've been very coddled and loved and made to feel special and it doesn't it hasn't left me at all. I seek that in I either seek that or I like sort of revere it. I think that or I like direct towards another person.
THERAPIST: Mm-hmm.
CLIENT: So I think I get awe struck pretty easily.
THERAPIST: Ah-huh. And you like kind of love to be a part of that, going one way or the other, or both ways, or all sorts of ways.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Yeah. [0:26:27.6]
CLIENT: But of course when you remove all of that structure, it's very hard to give it to yourself.
THERAPIST: Mm-hmm. Like in a ballroom. At least in its more concrete forms, like over the weekend, there's a lot of ceremony and ritual that goes into creating it, the pageantry. But it helps to have your I guess your family feeling that way.
CLIENT: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's exactly it. And part of it is just what my parents, and especially my mom's parents, value. They're so they think of life in terms of celebration and yet they're so hearty, like they're so robust, they've been through so much terrible stuff. [0:27:51.2]
THERAPIST: In the sense that like as much as they can see life as being about celebration, they know very, very well that it's not a lot of times?
CLIENT: Like my grandmother had a baby stolen from her at the hospital, in India.
THERAPIST: Oh, my God.
CLIENT: Her baby.
THERAPIST: That's horrible.
CLIENT: And decided never to deliver in the hospital again. My grandfather left to get his PhD and left five children with my grandmother, who would just pick them up and raise them for four years, and then they all moved to South America and saw a lot of violence and also so a lot of great things because my grandfather worked really hard. And then they all came to this country, in Kentucky, in the '70s, and my mom went to the first desegregated school and was teased. Then, they had no money and everybody worked. Everybody worked. My grandmother worked. She raised five kids, they all sort of just did a lot of work. And she and my grandfather are like leaders in this community and so they often get pulled into all sorts of terrible things that are happening. There's a very real awareness of how lucky we are. [0:29:39.8]
THERAPIST: Mm-hmm.
CLIENT: And there's also like this insular attitude about it, like sure everybody is open and tolerant of new people and new things, but there's also a lot of like this is the way to lead a good life, and for a long time it was about not it was about marrying an Indian Hindu person. And anyway, it just shows my grandparents' flexibility and like ability to change with the times, but there's a lot of like we brought all this stuff from our home country to this country and we're going to try our hardest to maintain it and to keep it going, because we believe it's the best way.
THERAPIST: Yeah. [0:30:41.2]
CLIENT: So when you're like in your twenties, by yourselves, there's not really that sense of confidence or interest in like at least I don't think Jeremy and I are necessarily interested in like finding something that we think is the best, absolute best way.
THERAPIST: Mm-hmm.
CLIENT: And Jeremy doesn't think he's he thinks that his parents are amazing and they love him very much, and they have always shown him that overall, made out of love and care, but he doesn't think he's anybody baby and he brings that to our home.
THERAPIST: I see.
CLIENT: Like you're not anybody's baby. And I think I'm my mom's like first through tenth baby, and she's and like she got it from her parents and they got it from their parents.
THERAPIST: Yeah. [0:31:48.9]
CLIENT: It's quite deep.
THERAPIST: It sounds that way, that um, I don't know what other reference that occurs to me, is like that they're going to bring all of the wonderful stuff to you in the same way that they brought it to this country.
CLIENT: Mm-hmm.
THERAPIST: Yeah, they ought to make manifest of all the stuff they feel so wonderfully about and that they feel it's the way things should be, like they're going to try to convince everybody or anybody.
CLIENT: No, there's not like a sense of proselytizing, but there is a sense of like… [0:32:53.3]
THERAPIST: A tremendous celebration, like the way they do things, like over the weekend, you know?
CLIENT: Mm-hmm. But it wasn't overt, it was just like we were all just doing our thing.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: People were putting apples in cups and like people were laughing. Yeah, like the Comcast guy came in the middle and there is this whole community of people that my parents are part of and there are lots of, how are things going on, and it was just like -
THERAPIST: I guess what I get is like this very clear, like very, sort of sturdy and I'm shaking my head at myself because sometimes there are like almost luminous sense of being part of this larger thing.
CLIENT: Mm-hmm. [0:33:56.1]
THERAPIST: We're being, we're doing things, we're celebrating things, we're being together, that's sort of kind of understood by everybody.
CLIENT: Yeah. And I guess a lot of families don't work that way or they don't think it matters, but like why doesn't everybody have this sort of like I haven't really been able to find a lot of -
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: A lot of companions in this journey. I don't know a lot of other people who are struggling with something that actually sounds so wonderful and it's like why are you struggling.
THERAPIST: Mm-hmm.
CLIENT: I felt a lot of the same things in Jeremy's family too, when we were there over Christmas, and other times that we're there together. I think I'm able to translate it to other situations, but I think for some reason it takes like a warm home with tons of people in it. It's really hard without that.
THERAPIST: Mm-hmm. [0:35:13.2]
CLIENT: So I guess my grandmother's perspective would be well, now it's time for you to give that to your community, and like you want a big family, build one, make it. Like it's not like she had all of that with her all the time, like she left and went to South America and then she went to Kentucky, and it was incredibly hostile.
THERAPIST: Mm-hmm, sure.
CLIENT: And my mom, who had never left home before, like had a baby on my dad's defense day and they all moved to Virginia. We moved to Virginia three weeks later and that was it, that was the last time she lived at home, and she didn't really bring any of it with her in a way that I haven't brought anything with me. [0:36:19.7]
THERAPIST: Ah-huh?
CLIENT: She brought a lot less of it probably, because there weren't cell phones or really airplanes. And the way she talks about it, my grandmother was like really busy at the time. Something bad was happening financially and she didn't really have a lot of time to talk to my mom.
[Pause: 0:36:41.6 to 0:37:14.2]
THERAPIST: Do you have the kind of idea or fantasy that somehow, even though you know you're describing how in a kind of practical way they didn't bring anything with that, that you have brought with you or that in fact, in some ways I gather, they basically got more adversity bringing what they did, than you do, but somehow, they had it and they brought it and you're not quite sure you do in the same way. Not that you couldn't, but…
CLIENT: I don't think I am. I think there's a tradition, I'm doing it, and I think I think I will learn, I will learn a lot more and maybe I'll bring it, and maybe I'll bring something different.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: But I don't think it's happening right now.
THERAPIST: Yeah. I was picturing, kind of I felt I think this will seem like I'm being (inaudible), but you know how like in cartoons, someone will bring something small and they'll like push a button and it like morphs and kind of flips open into some like, you know, big, grand thing.
CLIENT: Yeah. [0:38:25.7]
THERAPIST: And this is kind of like in a magical, cartoonish sort of way.
CLIENT: Like Mary Poppins or something.
THERAPIST: Tell me about that, that's good.
CLIENT: Well, she shows up with this bag like this big, and she pulls out of it, she's like there with all this nanny role, and she's like I'm here. No, I don't need a bed, I don't need a coat rack, I don't need anything. She pulls all of these things out of her bag.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Well, I think there is an element of faith that is missing, but I kind of like the spiritual thing that I'm finding, that there's a lot. And in like Jeremy's and my ability to have spiritual experiences around music. And I think there's an element of like… we're just in a different time. There's not the sense of like you know, my dad showed up, like you couldn't get to this country unless you had a singular vision about what you wanted to do and didn't really wait enough to threaten it. So, there wasn't a whole lot of like what job should I have, like what makes me happy. There wasn't any of that. It was just like do your work, feel lucky and that's it, and pray I guess. I don't think my dad did a whole lot of praying back then, but I think he valued it in my mom. So that's not really and Jeremy's not an immigrant, I'm not an immigrant. [0:40:33.5]
THERAPIST: Mm-hmm.
CLIENT: It feels like we grew up with a whole lot more than what we have. Almost like this lethargy or I don't know.
THERAPIST: We have five minutes.
CLIENT: Thanks.
THERAPIST: Ah-huh? I guess a lot of like a sort of great generation came before you and sits spectacularly, and so you're maybe not quite sure where that leaves you in a way?
CLIENT: Mm-hmm. I can imagine a life that's pretty close, like a while from now. I can't really imagine the steps to getting there, if they're different than the steps that we're taking, and I think the steps that we're taking are pretty great. They're just really fucking hard. There's also this sense of like if you see some brokenness, maybe you don't you're not as like wide-eyed. I don't know. I didn't know a single divorced couple until I was like 17, and Jeremy's mom's three siblings are divorced and remarried, two of them are remarried. So even that, like that's not anything that Jeremy experienced himself, but there was just a wider picture of happiness. It's like you can go through this horrible thing and you can find someone else and you can make another life. And maybe you aren't happy and that's fine too, you're still alive. [0:43:07.0]
THERAPIST: Mm-hmm.
CLIENT: Whereas for me, there's almost a sense of like without this special feeling…
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