TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: I threw my shoulder back or something.

THERAPIST: Oh no.

CLIENT: Not out exactly but – (inaudible).

(PAUSE): [00:00:28 – 00:01:25]

CLIENT: So, we had a naming ceremony yesterday. My mother came. My sister did not come. Her son had strep throat. They checked it and he looked completely fine, they just didn’t get him on antibiotics in time. So it was nice introducing the two families to each other. Jennie’s sister who – she’s kind of difficult, she’s neurotic in a way that’s very similar to the way I imagine myself on the outside but she’s also very Type A and the combination of the two is sometimes very challenging. She and I had a very sweet interaction the last time and she asked when she should come and I said, ‘listen, we don’t need you for child care but come whenever and she started putting it about that I hadn’t gotten back to her or something and so they could only come for the day rather than coming for a longer visit. She’s fucking crazy. So I was kind of pissed off about that. The interaction was fine. It was just that it was weird. This kind of stuff that she pulls on Jennie, she’s not pulling on me, which I think makes it appropriate.

THERAPIST: Congratulations.

CLIENT: My mother was very sweet and she was spacy and she stayed up two nights with the kid just so Jennie and I could sleep.

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: She said she got him to sleep like three and a half to four hours at a stretch. And she was you know – I was up at 5 and (unclear) and there she was (inaudible). She’s very generous. She’s also very forgetful. She (unclear) the diaper rash. We talked about it. How my mother decided to let it – to “air it out.” But my mother insisted on carrying him everywhere so he like and feeding him and every time you feed him he’s going to take a shit. So you know, (laughing) he didn’t have a diaper on and naturally he took a shit and she got peed on, the diaper she was holding onto, the rug. After that happened I cleaned it off. She came into the living room and she was holding him on the couch and of course he took a piss. It was so classic. When I went to pick her up at the airport her sweetness and her complete lack of attention to everything are inextricable from each other. So when I went to pick her up at the airport her plane got in like an hour early and so, but Jennie – actually when she got in – and her mother had the car and they were at the grocery store and she said, ‘well, I’ll come as fast as I can,’ and she said, ‘no problem at all, I’ll just wait at the baggage claim,’ and we said ok, well you know, I guess I wasn’t crystal clear but I figured she realize I can’t come in, I’d have to take the car and pick her up in a waiting area. So I said, ‘okay, I’ll call you when I’m getting there.’ So I get there and as usual look in the arrival areas and there’s a state policeman moving everybody along for reasons of terrorist anxiety and I got there and I called her and the phone just rang through. So I called her again and the phone just rang through. So fuck, you know, so I left the hazard lights on and went across the two strips of traffic to the terminal and she was nowhere to be found. Oh fuck, Jesus. And I turned around and on the plane this girl, this toddler, was coughing the whole trip so she wanted to change her clothes and wash up before she came in to see Grayson. And her phone was low on juice so she left her bag and the phone charging in the care of some stranger. I think that after pacing up and down I saw her through the window I started banging on the window. Anyway. So again, this incredibly sweet (inaudible) madness, very weird execution sort of born to it. So the visit has been kind of like that. Grayson is just so – I was very moved during the ceremony and the blessing. It was a good blessing. I felt the devotion of that. We Skyped both my sister and her family because they didn’t come and Jennie’s dad from Jordan and a friend of ours came to the service. It was very – everybody was very touched by it. I got all of the people I really like to send blessings. It was good.

THERAPIST: So how are you doing today?

CLIENT: I forgot where we left the last discussion. But yeah, I don’t know. We left an empty chair for my father that somebody sat in. So – it was nice. (inaudible) I had a conversation with my cousin who is retiring from the union that does the hospital workers negotiations. We’ve been talking for the last year or so about her next gig and she’s not decided if she’s going to do this executive MPH program, this (unclear) program at UPenn. And she asked me what I was planning to do. And I said, ‘you know, for now, I’m just planning to change diapers.’ (Laughs) She looked concerned. And I guess that was the only interaction that was remotely troubling to me. I’m not sure what to make of where I am and what we need and what how to serve those needs best. I feel, as I was saying before, satisfied and actually, right in this role. And my mother said, actually to me, she said, ‘you know he went to Asia and did all these things and I see you being a father, it just seems to fit so well on you.’ And it just seemed to be such a nice thing to say and who knows, maybe it’s true. I don’t think I’m done like the rest of the world. So maybe that was what was troubling to me about (unclear). I want her to be a housewife but I’m not sure, A) what the next hoorah would be, and B) I guess how to get there seems mysterious to me. I think the getting there has always been mysterious to me. [00:12:06]

On the other hand, I guess the getting to this, you know, I have a sweet family that is also a mysterious one. Somehow, I navigated it so mysterious would be feasible. (inaudible). Anyway, no more (unclear) reflections for the moment I guess.

(PAUSE): [00:12:36 00:12:53]

CLIENT: It really does feel like the work of my hands. It’s not something that came easily – creating this household. It’s not something that wants without some very conscious effort –

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: Where the component parts were, the challenge of it. Not of the fathering but the fathering – the actual interaction with this infant, but I’m finding instruction of that, the progression, organization, all those things to be a challenge. I guess I keep getting a lot of satisfaction with that. Whenever people come into our house and say they feel good. They feel good coming into our house. They feel some peace and happiness, contentment, love, (inaudible) and so do I.

(PAUSE): [00:14:18 00:14:27]

THERAPIST: That’s fantastic.

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah, no, it’s nice to (inaudible). But I do feel the weight I guess in most of the challenge –

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Sort of peeking through. Through the clouds.

(PAUSE): [00:14:44 00:16:17]

THERAPIST: Well I guess this has been a fairly consistent thing over the past few weeks, or at least it’s happened a few times I think where you kind of come like up to the edge of talking about that stuff. You know, like we mentioned it sort of peeking through the clouds or being in the offing or being kind of out there but it seems like you’re kind of coming up to the edge of talking about it, but not.

CLIENT: What is it I’m not talking about? Just right now, very explicit.

THERAPIST: Going back to work. I don’t mean that you plan to do it today or tomorrow.

CLIENT: I don’t understand the observation.

THERAPIST: When you said –

CLIENT: I mean I understand the observation, but I don’t see – I guess I don’t get why the basis for it. I don’t understand the basis for the observation. It seems like I am talking very explicitly about it. I’m not – Beckett just put it – just made it seem like I’m kind of touching upon it but not getting into it – it seems like that’s all I’m getting into, I just don’t know – I just don’t know. I don’t know what I feel. I feel I don’t know what I want to do bur I’ve said that, I think pretty explicitly. But not knowing is not quite the same as not getting into it. I feel challenged by it. I feel uncertain about it. I feel a little confused about it, maybe. But I don’t think I’m avoiding this at least the way that I understood what you were saying. I was kind of walking up to it, and yet not diving into it. Unless you mean that I’m not diving into like actively looking for a gig which is true except that –

THERAPIST: Yeah, it doesn’t like it’s the timing. In other words, it says to me –

CLIENT: (Gasps)

THERAPIST: Are you all right?

CLIENT: I’m a little sore.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: It’s not acute like -

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: My head isn’t going to fall off. I’m just kind of uncomfortable.

(PAUSE): [00:12:24 00:20:09]

THERAPIST: I guess it seems to me that we have sort of two different views of two different things. Yeah it seems like we have – to me it does kind of sound like you kind of come up to the edge of talking about it and then don’t seem to dive in, although I’m aware you say you are talking about it and just don’t know what else to say. And then – that’s thing one that I think our (unclear) is different. And thing two is I don’t think necessarily you’re avoiding talking about it although it seems to me that’s how, that’s where I seem to be coming from with like saying something like, ‘you’re kind of choosing not to,’ or, ‘you’re avoiding it.’ It just seems that’s a little more attributive to you than what I have in mind. In other words, like –

(PAUSE): [00:21:28 – 21:49]

THERAPIST: Maybe you just don’t want to talk about it or maybe – I don’t know. It doesn’t quite seem like you’re -

CLIENT: I had a son three weeks ago and I am very excited to talk about that so I imagine that it’s sort of diving into this very kind of complicated and troubling question of my other work in the world is by comparison not very appealing. So there’s probably some of that and also just because of this completely new and remarkable experience I just want to talk about that a little bit.

THERAPIST: Again, it seems like you feel I’m telling you you should be doing something or that you’re not doing something you’re supposed to be doing.

CLIENT: Ah, that’s true.

THERAPIST: I mean the only reason I’m bringing it up at all because you said, like I could see how they’re kind of peeking through.

CLIENT: Right, right.

THERAPIST: And you said things like that recently, so that’s what I’m responding to and again I think actually that issue where it does feel to you like I’m telling you you should be doing -

CLIENT: No, no. It feels to me that I should be –

THERAPIST: Oh.

CLIENT: No, no, no, I think what you’re saying is very pertinent and apropos and I’m kind of projecting onto you this part of me that you know is concerned about just kind of pushing the world aside even though we kind of need to deal with it or I need to deal with it.

THERAPIST: Right. Well certainly if you said to me, ‘I’m just not going to think about it for the next X weeks or months, I wouldn’t –

CLIENT: And actually that’s what I’ve kind of done. Almost verbatim when I said to Beth-Ann, I was like, ‘you know, I just need to take a couple of months and figure out what’s what. Because I feel burned, I feel disappointed, disillusioned and I’m not sure what I want to do next. So you know the birth, apart from being beautiful and wonderful, is also (unclear) gratuitous maybe and we’ll just make ends meet while that’s happening. You know so I have that idea in my head and yet I think the fact that I’m sort of assigning you the job of expressing disapproval is interesting and significant. Thing one was clear the moment you said it. And then I kind of lost it again. Would you repeat it?

THERAPIST: How much sleep have you had in the last three weeks? Sure. I’ll be happy to. I think it was I think, well so, I had said it seems to me that you kind of walk up to the edge and don’t dive in and you said, oh, I feel like I am talking about it. And you know more, I haven’t said to you (unclear) talking about it but I just don’t know what else to say.’ And so it just had a different feel to each of us actually.

CLIENT: The referent here being my statement that it was sort of peeking through the clouds but it’s not quite –

THERAPIST: Yeah, that statement today along with some others in recent weeks.

CLIENT: Right. Yeah, no, I can see that.

(PAUSE): [00:25:36 00:25:53]

CLIENT: So I think what I take from thing one and two is that right now I’m in the literal sense of the word, ambivalent. There are two kinds of contrary impulses that I’m trying to reconcile and they’re operating in a seriously but not unprecedentedly for me or anyone else complicated way without kind of resolving themselves to one strategic approach or one state of mind because these states of mind are kind of on parallel tracks. And you know the implications among others for the way that I’m feeling is very strangely simultaneous incidents of great ease and contentment and satisfaction and joy and great unease and uncertainty and whatever and they’re just there together.

THERAPIST: Yep.

CLIENT: So beyond the practicalities of the matter I think that’s the most concise description of where I’m coming from right now. I don’t know. And the peeking through the cloud-ness could also be described as something to the effect that you know, these two states of mind are simultaneous and yet just my feeling of joy and contentment just completely overwhelms the other. You know except for some very occasional squalls, but presumably the weather will ultimately change and I have a sense that the other meteorological phenomenon is not going away. It’s not being blown out to sea for forever and a day. It’s not going anywhere. But for the moment, at least, what I’m feeling is really dominated by wonderment. My blessing was kind of about, among other things, something that I’ve been puzzling over – let me put it that way – that made its way into my blessing, is newborn’s experience of hunger. I just find it repeatedly interesting and moving I guess how freaked out Grayson gets when he gets hungry and how surprised and confused he is when he has to digest something. You know both of these being incredibly powerful feelings and sensations and requirements that were completely unnecessary for all of his consciousness, you know, all of the period in which he was – you know, all of the consciousness that he has – they were completely unnecessary for everything except three weeks. So suddenly three weeks ago he felt hunger. Suddenly three weeks ago he felt himself digesting. Suddenly three weeks ago it was like, oh my God. No wonder he’s freaked out every time he gets hungry. How vulnerable that must feel. Something that – a vulnerability you completely forget at some point – or not forget – it will soon be there, but forget that you felt that way.

(PAUSE): [00:30:33 – 00:30:48]

CLIENT: I’ve been reading Daniel Siegel, you’ve probably run across him.

THERAPIST: Where did –?

CLIENT: I don’t remember where (unclear) The Developing Mind. He’s into this kind of interaction in the creation of mind between environment and sort of (unclear) theology. This is a kind of academic book. He has kind a more popular book called, Diary of a Baby.

THERAPIST: Oh, I’ve heard of that.

CLIENT: Yeah, I haven’t read that one. I’ve just read this one. Anyway, it’s like empathy with a newborn is so hard because I’ve forgotten all of these things but they’re still there. And he has a theory that you can’t access them yet somehow behind every other operation you have an imprint or residue or what have you of this experience. Somehow. I’m not quite sure what to make of that. I think I mentioned a week ago or so that Jennie very explicitly made this connection between his startles in his sleep and mind.

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: Maybe that’s what got me thinking on this stream of thought. So it’s interesting to be at this transitional moment and to have this young person in the household like on the one hand he’s this person and on the other hand he’s like this experimental subject this generic human being.

(PAUSE): [00:33:20 – 33:33]

CLIENT: His (unclear) to me is very strong and I have to fight off the urge to just see everything that happens to him. I mean, yeah, it’s not something you – I thought of reading part of a poem I wrote for my dad and then I – you know we didn’t give him any family names. We gave him four names in the end because the rabbi asked us what we wanted his Hebrew name to be. And we ended up just picking two names that we liked but discarded because they were two foreign. So he has four names that we love but that don’t have any family significance which you know, as I was thinking about it is great – you know, not saddling this small person with baggage seems like something that would be very desirable. So in that vein I think I’m wary of acclimating him, you know bringing him into my consciousness in a way that gives him too much responsibility for modeling myself at that age. But you know he is a person. He’s a human. I mean there are things that he does that I think are pretty (unclear). [00:35:10]

Anyway, so I hunger and desires run so strong. He’s very, he’s very good with his hands.

THERAPIST: Right. Two fisted thumb sucking.

CLIENT: Two fisted thumb sucking. Convenience, right? And he’s very good at – relatively good at self-soothing and the combination of those things means that when he’s in distress his go-to thing will be to bring his hands to his mouth for some comfort, and it’s so moving, literally and figuratively, I mean it’s like, it’s moving. He’s not just distressed he’s like trying to figure it out, figure out how to deal with it. And you know, among other things it’s nice because it allows us not to get to that point if we can just to stick a bottle in his mouth.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: Sometimes he’s so distressed and responding in such as proactive way that you can’t get the bottle in his mouth because he’s jammed his hands in there.

THERAPIST: And you think he’s precociously able to like provide some of the soothing that the bottle does by (unclear) at his hands.

CLIENT: I guess so. I don’t know about the precocious part. And I don’t know about the able part in the sense that he can’t sooth his hunger with his hand – nice as that might be, with his hand. But he’s precociously – you can speak to the precocious. He’s inspired to do this in a way that I haven’t seen in other newborns but I haven’t seen any other newborns although I haven’t seen any other newborns.

THERAPIST: Yeah, I think it’s very unusual.

(PAUSE): [00:37:31 – 00:37:50]

THERAPIST: You might let your pediatrician know.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean, it’s so characteristic of him to the point where when I just imagine this sweet little being in my head it’s not moments of repose that come to mind, it’s his moments of stress and complexity. We have many – he’s often very, very calm.

THERAPIST: Not because there are more of those moments –

CLIENT: Definitely not. Quite to the contrary. You know, again, and what I take as unusual in a newborn, he can be up for two and a half hours and just completely hanging out. In fact, during the whole ceremony he was not – he was asleep. He slept through the entire ceremony. And I was saying to Jennie, or maybe to Beth-Ann, my cousin, I was saying, this just made it crystal clear how right it feels not to circumcise him. Because, you can imagine, that would not have been the case at that been done.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: But yeah, no, I mean, so he’s just like, it’s not the most frequent state of being for him by any stretch of the imagination, and yet maybe it just feels very remarkable to me that, A) that the feeling is so strong in an infant, not that as I was saying a moment ago, it’s just striking to me, and B) it feels remarkable to me that he is able to make what seems like a fairly high level decision to try to intervene with himself. Not to just feel distress but to do something about it. And that seems like a constructive (unclear). One that others who shall go unnamed should probably do well to try and emulate. Rabbi Larry gave a very nice Biblical commentary for part of the proceeding. Apparently, the Hebrew name we gave him was Ido who was one of the more obscure prophets and apparently he was the prophet under a very bad king, which there were many of course, and the king did something terrible and Ido cursed him or did something and his hand withered and the king came to Ido and said, ‘heal me, (unclear).’ It was a nice story.

THERAPIST: Yeah. We should stop.

CLIENT: We should stop. Okay.

THERAPIST: So all the (unclear) after Thanksgiving.

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: Unless you tell me otherwise.

CLIENT: Right. And that’s –

THERAPIST: A week from Friday.

CLIENT: A week from Friday. Okay.

THERAPIST: So I’ll see you on Friday and Monday and then you’re out Friday. Congratulations, again.

CLIENT: Thank you, again. Thank you. It’s good to see you.

END TRANSCRIPT