My mother left this morning. She wakes me up around 4am to say “Mama’s going” and it breaks my heart. Not the leaving but how devastated she is. Both of us with our fear of being abandoned – she has been, and I'm just getting to know the feeling.
I’m trying to write in this seminar class so I don’t have to listen to these people talk about fucking punctuation, or rather the lack thereof punctuation. It's important to learn how to focus in the midst of unwanted noise. We’re reading a pretentious, obnoxious, and occasionally profoundly beautiful poet. The professor says things like “a point in their career where they can get away with it” and I don't believe in that. Somebody is describing sally rooney’s normal people in excruciating detail and with the implication she invented dialogue or something. I sound stupid when I speak too, so who am i to say.
I've come here from trying therapy for the first time in the psychological services one floor up. What service they perform remains unclear. The office exists on a secret floor which requires a second, secret elevator. They are immediately concerned you are going to kill yourself, but have curated an experience that would, if you were on the fence, be the straw that broke the camel’s back. The chairs are plastic, lights fluorescent, the receptionist might actually be dead already. After a very long time the "provider" calls out a name that sounds like mine and I don't correct her. She does not follow my new name with hello or how are you or my name is or even a handshake. She proceeds to her office and doesn't break eye contact with her desktop screen the entire hour as she fills out a “Formal Intake Form”. Occasionally she looks at me to say things like “So then, why are you here?” and “Is there no step you can take to fix that yourself?” and “Oh you have diabetes. Well that probably explains a lot of it”. She asks me to fill out another survey on my phone, which again asks me to assess my overall risk of suicide and to rate the quality of my “intimate relationships (for example: support, closeness, communication)” on a scale of “TERRIBLE, POOR, FAIR, PRETTY GOOD, VERY GOOD.” The punctuationists would love to expand on this use of capitalization.
For the remaining fifteen minutes she reads back to me the answers i've filled out, but intonates them as a question. “You feel terrible about your relationship with yourself?” She seems actively angry at me for coming. When I try to elaborate, she furrows her brow and interrupts me with “Wait, I’m confused.”
So you've had panic attacks before. Where?
Oh, lots of places. Doesn’t seem to be specific to the place. The subway, at home –
In the subway?
Yes, I've had a panic attack in the subway.
So the subway triggers your panic attacks?
No, I often go in the subway and do not have a panic attack.
Wait, I'm confused.
Well, I also have them at home, or in the shower, or while driving.
Well. I’m confused.
Me too.
Anyways, the class has resolved that a great way to access humor is a lack of punctuation, which creates an intimacy of disclosure with the writer. Apparently the characters' identities allow them to embody their identities or something. And how could one not embody their identity? Doesn't anybody doing anything while believing “I am” immediately embody whatever they are, unless you are a sort of Tim Burtonesque floating head only certain unlucky children can see?
That's how I feel in New York. Maybe that's why I often accidentally make prolonged eye contact with children in strollers. I feel like they are saying:
“You see me? Holy shit! Nobody sees me, man! They just think I'm a little alien or a toy!”
And I'm like
“Me too!”
And we go our separate ways.