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Tea
And Therapy
By Ross Eldridge
____________________
It is my habit, for better or worse, to hurry home from occasions and
experiences that are interesting to me and to scribble hand-written notes on the
subject and to write up conversations word-for-word. When it is convenient, I
type the notes up and keep them as work-papers in my computer. Eventually, the
particular event is revisited. For me, this is a kind of therapy.
And so it happens that I have fifteen pages of typewritten notes created from
impressions gathered at a November birthday party with about a half-dozen
friends of mine, and a subsequent afternoon tea party in December to celebrate a
book that one of the same group had had published. This happened in 2002, and
the notes have been waiting to see the light of day (and reason) for over a
year.
The birthday party will have to wait awhile to be recreated, but the gathering
of about twenty friends and acquaintances for a literary tea is about to go down
on the printed page. I'll call it "Tea and Therapy" and hope to amuse.
We'll meet my friends and a very odd therapist.
If my lay friends are strange, and they really are, it is my experience that one
of the strangest people I have ever encountered is a psychiatric therapist. More
than a psychiatrist, this gentleman is a psychoanalyst, with, I imagine, a wall
covered in diplomas and, I trust, a file full of "Thank You!" letters.
My own therapist knows him, and recommends him as a colleague and an amusing
personality.
I first met this peculiar fellow at a combined Christmas high tea and book
launching. Several of my friends attended the party, and I've known the host - a Bermudian
writer who specializes in local history books - since he wrote about the ghost
that haunts a home my father lived in for a time. I had not appreciated that my
friend, the writer, was in therapy. His guest of honour was his therapist.
When I walked into the rather grand old Bermuda home, I was met by the anxious
author of the book being launched (or dedicated, autographed and handed out at
least ... no books flew through the air) who warned me that I could not under
any circumstances review his book in the newspaper. It was not because of my
poor reviewing skills on other occasions; it was simply that the book was a
personal effort, not for commercial sale or profit. Rather, a gift to the
author's friends and, I think, selected family members. It featured family
photographs with captions, the writer was identified and his picture shown on
the cover.
"It's about my sexual awakening," whispered the host. "I see. I
can imagine you don't want that reviewed!" I tried to create a bit of
humour to lighten the atmosphere. Actually, I'm a bit of a smart-arse and I
couldn't resist making the remark. "A very limited number of copies and all
will be handed out personally," and he pointed to a cardboard box much
bigger than a breadbox.
In a large room with an open-beamed ceiling and a blazing fire in the hearth,
the author started signing books from the box and passing them along to each of
his guests, who were taking tea, finger sandwiches, cake and sweet pastries. The
dedication in my copy indicated that the writer appreciated my "wonderful
messages", which the author had detected in my weekly newspaper column.
Every adult present, and quite likely the two
youngsters, eventually received a copy of the book, autographed and
personalized.
It is not my intention to review anyone's sexual awakening here, except to say
this one detailed by my friend was loud to the point of having his neighbours at
boarding school banging on walls and, apparently, was more than satisfactory for
all concerned. As I am a bit hard of hearing, anything at increased volume gets
my thumbs up!
Playing at being a therapist, I now sense that the book that I will not review
was discussed with, and encouraged by, the author's own therapist. It reads like
the revelations you might offer to your professional confidant and close
friends, if not all your immediate family. The therapist had been invited to the
tea for the wisdom and encouragement given the writer, and I don't think he had
the meter running for the hour.
My friend with the tell-nearly-all book must have spent a fair bit of money for
his therapeutic publication. It is a beautifully designed and printed hardcover
effort. I rather liked the story too. The writer entertained his friends, added
to the body of artistic literature in Bermuda, and had some therapy in the
bargain, all under the watchful gaze of a psychoanalyst. And what a curious
fellow this analyst turned out to be.
I was first introduced to the friend's honoured party guest. A firm handshake,
as you'd expect from a medical professional. He had his wife and two teenaged
daughters with him. I met them quickly, more handshakes and first names
exchanged.
"You are Ross Eldridge?" asked the doctor. "I read your column in
The Mid-Ocean News each weekend."
"Don't be put off by that," I replied. "I'm not such a mad or bad
person in real life." (I forgot that one should never use the words
"mad" and "bad" and "real life" around those in
the psychiatric field.)
"But, Ross, you don't look at all like the photograph in the newspaper
byline."
It's true, the photograph was many months old and I'd grown my hair longer and
had quit wearing my reading glasses.
"It's me, it really is!"
"Is there a copy of this week's Mid-Ocean News here?" asked the
doctor. There was. He looked at the newspaper and looked at me, and again at the
newspaper. "It really doesn't seem to be you. Are you sure you don't write
for another newspaper?"
And I thought to myself: "Here's a conversation to write down
tonight!"
After that introduction, I sat on a sofa with my tea (in a cup and saucer that
had arrived in Bermuda in a barrel of sawdust or flour on a sailing ship two
centuries ago, which made my hand shake to think on) and noticed that the
host-author was engaged in loud conversation with the wife of the psychiatrist.
I could hear the words quite clearly. She was talking to our host while
listening absent-mindedly to a cell phone held to her ear, and looking around at
the party guests. That might indicate a broad mind, the kind I lack.
"I say," she said to the author, "did you celebrate Hanukkah this
year?"
"Well, no. This is my only party this month. It's for Christmas and,
besides, I'm not Jewish."
"I understand. Hanukkah was very early this year."
One of the daughters gasped and asked, quite audibly, "Mummy-Darling,
doesn't that mean Christmas will be early this year too?"
"I'm afraid so."
"So early! So early!" The girl looked to be close to tears.
Her sister, however, turned to the analyst, asking, "Daddy, what jewels are
you getting us this Christmas?"
"They will have to be rubies or emeralds, of course. It is Christmas after
all!"
"I do so adore rubies, Daddy."
"For myself, I'm thinking of getting some star sapphires. One can get so
lost in star sapphires. I might even have a diadem made for me." The
analyst reached up and posed his fingers like a crown on his head.
I'd met quite a few therapists over the years, but never one like this. Of
course, he was not sitting behind a desk, or alongside a couch. It seemed that
psychiatrists might be people too. Weird people!
The daughters, who I probably should not lampoon bearing in mind their ages and
delicate sensibilities, then seemed to forget about jewelry and precious stones.
"We sat next to two virgins on the flight to Bermuda," one daughter
informed
us all.
"Yes, one was seventeen and the other twenty-five," chirped her
sister.
At this point, I very nearly had to be a nosy reporter. "How," I
wondered to myself, "did they know these fellow passengers were
virgins?" I restrained myself and figured that they probably simply asked,
and were given clear answers to their rather personal questions. "This sort
of thing might not be strange in the First Class Cabin on British Airways."
The best part of an hour having passed, the psychiatrist and his family grouped
together and prepared to take leave of the party, clutching copies of the book
we'd come to see launched. Kisses and thanks were exchanged with the host; they
were that kind of guests.
I thought the party would surely grind to a halt. Could a group such as this
continue to function without a resident therapist? Yet, there were a few more
public offerings and notes for me to take. One guest was trying to convert an
elegant young woman to the Animal Rights Cause. Cleverly, he used the
description of the person stroking a warm bunny's fur to inform her how such
things lower our blood pressure, get us in touch with nature, and benefit us in
so many ways.
"Yes," replied the well-dressed woman, "I quite understand that.
I have a fifty-two-inch mink coat and I love to stroke it."
[I have the sudden memory of my blue, lucky rabbit's foot that I lost while on
holiday at the seaside in England as a little boy. My luck never really
recovered from that.]
The Animal Activist immediately looked nauseous and almost speechless, and
stuffed some angel-food cake into his mouth hurriedly with his fingers. I know
that eating is often a symptom and result of anxiety and distress for some of
us. The man was somewhat overweight.
"This needs hot custard! Hot custard!" and then there was a horrified
silence from the PETA person.
When it came time for me to leave, my host whispered again the words he had
inscribed in my copy of his book.
"I got the inspiration to write my story partly from some things I read in
your newspaper column. I feel you are sending me messages. Thank you for the
messages!"
The host did not kiss me goodbye. "I am not that kind of guest, or it is
not that kind of party," I thought. "But what do I know? I only write
a newspaper column, not a tell-nearly-all book."
I'll mention all this to my own therapist.
____________________
Ross
Eldridge, a UK Citizen living in Bermuda, was a trainee bartender at "The
Wheatsheaf Inn" in Ludlow, Shropshire, for a week in 1968. It went downhill
from there: reinsurance, supermarket accounting, therapy, travel, passport
photography, therapy, a newspaper column, therapy. Ross wants to write comedy,
having 1001 funny experiences that his therapist refuses to hear. Before he gets
too old to enjoy it, Ross wants to sleep on the floor of the Natural History
Museum in London, below the blue whale. He has written about this craving. Help
make it possible! Ross can be contacted at REwriter@northrock.bm
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