The Table in My Mind
It was the kind of sweltering in early July that Chicago does so expertly and so often. I was out in my garden sweating away as I watered a cluster of hydrangeas that were drooping with heat stress when I had one of those smack-yourself-in-the-forehead moments. The sort that makes you groan as you ask yourself, quite often out loud: “What was I thinking!”
As I turned the hose onto the next bush, I searched for an answer to my self-imposed question, one which came suddenly, in response to a thought that had then popped up in my mind, as the hose began to leak and my sneakers grew progressively soaked. One thing suddenly became clear to me at that moment: any sort of logic had left the useful table that always resided in my mind, the one where I sorted through all sorts of emotional troubles; instead an irrational idea had pulled up a chair and settled in to torture me with my lack of an answer. What had I been thinking, indeed?
Perhaps the source of this question had sprung up in my mind earlier that morning, when I’d been sitting in our vet’s waiting room with three impatient pet parents, all of us chilling as the techs finished trimming our pups’ nails. It was there, while scrolling through the news on my phone, that I came across a New York Times essay written by award-winning clinical psychologist, Mary Pipher: “How I Build a Good Day When I’m Full of Despair” (June 28, 2022).
As a fan of Pipher’s since the 1994 publication of her pioneering book, Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls, this was an article with which I would certainly identify. And so, adjusting my unwanted/damned bifocals, I plunged right in.
A short time later, I was mumbling to the now empty waiting room. After reading a line about how she felt “ragged with grief at the news of the world,” I agreed out loud: Don’t we all! And a paragraph later, I stumbled over this: “We live in a time of groundlessness when we can reasonably predict no further than dinnertime.” Amen, Mary. Amen.
Her central message, however, was not one of doom and gloom. Rather, she moved on to talk about battling despondency in this era of mass shootings and the intense social and political strife which was locking down our nation. Drawing upon memories of her resilient grandmother and her current mindfulness lessons, as well as her life-long study of psychology, Pipher was offering her readers some solid suggestions about how, as individuals, we could better manage our emotional fatigue, anxiety, and chronic malaise.
“The best way to cope with suffering is to face it, explore its meaning and then muster our inner resources to move forward,” she noted. “We find ways to balance our despair [by] mustering those inner resources that each of us possess.” Action, she then reminded her readers, “is always an antidote to despair.” It can be found so easily, she’d suggested, when we establish a necessary and critical connection to friends and family, as well as when we participate in service for others. After reading through to the end, I looked up from my phone, suddenly feeling energized and inspired.
If only I’d been able to leave it at that.
But what followed on that metaphorical table in my mind was an inexplicable and joyful “Woodstockian moment.” It was an idea in which I believed—with all my being and with an absolute certitude bolstered by zero evidence. Surely Pipher’s essay had resonated with every reader in the very same way that it did for me: a beautifully written, well-reasoned commentary, created by an expert in the same field as mine. What a kindred spirit she was: one in whose words we all could trust. Excited, I clicked on to the “comments” bar at the end of the page, eager to read everything my like-minded brethren had to say.
Fifteen seconds. That was about how long it took me to realize that there would be no consensus of opinion, and to understand that my quick and self-assured flight into my imagination would inevitably crash. Jolted, I made myself push through a few dozen of the five-hundred-and-sixty-four entries, and was at least pleased to note that there was much praise for the author; nevertheless I was also deeply dismayed to read plenty of snark. How had I forgotten that free-range rage had become the social media norm?
By the time I settled our freshly-snipped pooch onto the back seat of the car, my chagrin had lessened, pushed aside by an even more unsettling emotion:
I felt bereft. The article’s accompanying and thoughtless commentary had brought with it a wave of sorrow and depression.
Taken aback, and with no opportunity to ponder why such a strong emotion would have welled up inside me, I marched through my daily honey-do list and the commitments I had made. So, it wasn’t until late in that afternoon, while flooding my sneakers with the hose before retiring to the hammock in our backyard, that I finally had a chance to reflect on the events of the day.
What had I been thinking, indeed? I rocked back and forth for a long time, maybe even until the sun had begun to make its downward journey, and my thoughts drifted. Before long, an image rose up in my mind: one of the lonely and confused girl I’d once been. I recalled, with sadness and perhaps a certain kind of wistfulness, how much my younger self had longed for connection––a sense of belonging––even though she had been too young to put a name to these desires. Now, with the muggy dusk making my skin sticky, a new thought emerged.
Hadn’t the Times essay identified emotions I’d been struggling with for a long time? I wondered. Hadn’t it resurrected much of the pain I’d felt as a child?
Click.
Wouldn’t it explain the reasons I’d succumbed to a bit of the “magical thinking” Joan Didion had written about in her book titled with that same phrase? Just as little Terry, in her quest to feel connected, would have done?
Click.
Pieces of the puzzle seemed to be fitting into place, but I waited for the clinical psychologist in me to weigh in on this interpretation.
Fine, my inner voice laughed. Makes more sense than most other ideas you’ve had today.
Early the next morning, once again turning the hose on my hydrangeas, I became aware that my heart felt a little less heavy, my mood a bit brighter. Grateful, I was ready to move forward into my day.
And if you were to ask me whether I’m now thinking more clearly––that I understand, for example, that it had been folly to think an “opinions” thread was a vehicle for empathetic discussion or a substitute for sympatico connection with family and friends––of course, I’d say “yes.”
But can I be sure that as I struggle with my own grief and uncertainty about the world in which we now live, that irrational ideas might not take a seat at the metaphorical yet wholly beneficial table where I often sort out my distress?
I can’t be certain. Yet.
Best,
