Therapy is fine, but it’s not for everyone.
I’ve tried it a few times, but I always end up comforting the therapist. My insurance isn’t that great, so if I’m not careful I find myself paying $150 an hour for the privilege of reassuring some earnest young helper-type that everything’s fine.
I usually go into it wanting to talk about something that’s troubling me. That is my understanding of how it’s supposed to work, but without fail they want to talk about “past traumas.”
“Are there any past traumas you think I should know about?”
“Oh, pff, no,” I’ll say as I wave my hand around vaguely, “I mean, we all have them, but that stuff was years ago. What’s bothering me is…”
And I’ll start talking about the burdens of being all the bread of a triple-decker club sandwich generation or whatever.
And they’ll look confused and ask me specific, pointed questions, and I’ll answer.
“But… don’t you want to look at that? That sounds terrible!”
You’d think they’d be answering their own question there, first of all. But also, honestly, if you can’t move on from most of life’s traumatic events, you’re missing out on a lot of good material.
I lived in Manhattan in the late '70s and early '80s, working in restaurants and attending the New York Restaurant School. The school was on 34th Street, across from the Empire State Building, where I'd often have lunch at the top—a nice view for a school dining room. I lived on 110th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam. That meant a long subway ride home, stinky, sweaty and tired at the end of a fourteen-hour day on my feet working in a kitchen.
One late spring afternoon, though more than ready to get home, I decided not to board an express train when it arrived at the station. Express trains, for those of you unaware, are the ones to take if you live in New York City. The every-stop, milk-run trains take forever, and the likelihood of subway breakdown grows with each successive lurch and stop. Still, the train that day was way too crowded, so I took a step back on the platform, away from the open doors. I figured I'd wait for the next train, whatever kind it was.
Before the doors closed, someone rammed me hard from behind. It happened so fast that I was picked up, feet off the ground, and propelled into the subway car.
I'd been too tired to change into civilian clothes before heading home that day. I was still in my clogs, black-and-white-checked chef's pants, the green spaghetti-strap leotard I was wearing under my whites, and my chef's coat. I never bothered wearing a bra1. Once out of work, the partially-unbuttoned chef's coat allowed me to cool off, but covered enough to get by til I got home.
My oversized bag, slung over my shoulder, contained my street clothes, knife roll, wallet, and keys. All of this went hurtling with me as I was pushed, and I finally came to a stop all the way against the other side of the car, between the crowd and a pole. My arms were wedged against the pole and people in all directions. Somewhere behind me was one of my clogs. My bag was stuck between the pole and a couple of people to the left behind me. I was wedged in tight.
Which was a problem, because the guy who had rammed me into the car was now grinding and humping into the small of my back. I twisted right and left, telling him to stop, asking the people around me to make room.
New York's west-side subway system, hurtling toward Morningside Heights in the late 70s, wasn't a chatty place. People pretty much ignored me, looking the other way, looking annoyed, looking anywhere but at me as I protested and struggled to move one way or another. The guy behind me kept humping, ignoring the crowd and my demands that he stop.
Then I noticed the man in front of me. He was quite small, just about five feet tall, maybe in his late forties. He looked terrified. Then I realized why.
I was jammed up against him, and his back was against the subway car.
Every hump and grind that my attacker made was being relay-humped and ground in turn by me into the man.
And the impact of being pushed through the crowd had broken one spaghetti strap on my leotard. I was half topless. At his face level.
"Oh, shit," I said, "I'm really sorry! You see, this guy behind me..."
He didn't look at me.
The upper west side had a large Cuban population at the time.
"¿Eres cubano?”
Still not looking at me, he gave a tight nod yes.
"¿Hablas inglés?"
I figured the informal form of my questions were appropriate as we were practically married at this point.
He shook his head no in tight, little jerks, still looking away. His eyes were shiny, with a lot of white showing. He tried to sidle away. Neither of us could move.
"Ummm, OK, well, um, yo no quiero molestarte - wait, shit that means to bother, not to molest. Fucking false cognates - OK, yo no quiero molestarte en una manera sexual..." I was not helping myself. I was afraid he was going to have a heart attack.
Meanwhile the humping persisted. The guy behind me, so tightly against me that I had yet to even see his face, showed no signs of letting up. I was getting a bruise on my back, but each twist or squirm I made to ease the shoving on my back and or try to bring my arms up only sent my chest ever-farther into my victim's face.
"So, um, hay un mal hombre detrás, y..."
I think the Cuban man was trying to be invisible. He was barely breathing. His eyes kept darting toward the door.
There’s a long time between stops on an express train.
We finally reached the next station. The crush gave way to the press of the crowd getting out to make their transfers. My bag and arms were released. The sea of people washed me onto the subway platform in my single clog and sock. I grabbed my leotard strap to tie it up, and spun backwards to find the guy who'd been doing all this. All I saw was a tall, pale, bearded figure as he peeled off to the side and disappeared in the crowd.
Instead of jumping back on the train I looked for the Cuban man, hoping to apologize. I caught sight of him twenty feet ahead to my right. I raised my hand and called after him. He saw me and ran.
And I ran lopsidedly after him. Determined to make amends, it took me a few seconds to realize that one woman's "clearing things up" was another man's "one-shoed pervert chasing him through a train station."
I stopped the pursuit, turned around, and got on the next train home.
Forty-four years later I still wonder if somewhere in New York there's an elderly Cuban man sitting around playing dominos and telling his friends about the time a crazy white lady molested him on the express train uptown.
And then I’ll chuckle and look up and see the 30-something therapist’s face.
“No, really, it’s fine. The ‘70s and ‘80s were kind of different…Do you want to hear about the time I worked in porn?”
Morning Teaistisms
Last week’s tea drawer rummage was so successful I decided to have another go. This week it’s an ancient tube of Republic of Tea Ginger Peach.
I usually have it iced in the warmer months, but as with our friend Celestial Seasonings, it’s good either way and has no expiration widow as far as I can tell. Not that I look. Why ruin a good thing?
I don’t have any peaches as it’s the opposite of peach season, but I do have some lychees, which go well with the black tea after dinner. Somehow it doesn’t keep me up.
I realize I’m taking liberties with the “morning” part of this section.
Soporific Peaches is a good band name., don’t you think?
Ahh, those were the days.
Another intriguing life story, Marjie. I'm so sorry this happened to you but I am fascinated how you are able to tell a story about such an unpleasant event in your life and still get a few "chuckle lines" in there. You write so well!!! Don't ever stop! BTW, now you have me humming Those Were The Days (Mary Hopkin, circa 1969??).
I've had some helpful therapists. But your comments remind me of a time in my late 20's when I went into therapy to process a recent crisis situation I had extricated myself from. This therapist didn't want to hear about it at all. She insisted we start from my early childhood. Been there, done that. I was thinking short-term therapy, she wanted years of rehashing and psychoanalysis. Granted, what I could afford was a student at a training institute who was probably being coached to keep me there for the length of her training. But it was a bit like going in with a broken arm and being told you had to talk about all your childhood diseases for several appointments first.