[2015.05.04: I had a notion today that it doesn't matter what I place my concentration upon - the result will be the same. I thought: I wish to paint the vase with dogwoods. And then thought people are more interesting. I looked at pictures of Joan Mitchell and then Joan Didion. They seem similar in frame and length of hair. C's hair looks a bit like Mitchell's. T's eyes slant like Didion's. How nice to think of T. Her hair falls like Didion's, too, the thin neat part. And the neatness of her dress. I recall that I miss T. Perhaps it's OK - that I lack this neatness of dress. Mitchell looks good in her rolled-up jeans and un-touched face.]
I pay AS a low sum for my twice-per-week sessions. In the waiting room, to the left of the chair, a vase sits on the red carpet. It is filled with tall dogwood branches. Upon a closer look (after the repetition of weeks, they remain unchanged) I realize they are fake. The place is clean; I notice the lines of vacuum on the carpet. AS says I, like goldilocks, am looking for something "just right." The radio is turned to the classical station; at this time of day, it is opera. When the clock strikes the hour, she comes to get me. Sometimes she has a client before or after me, but it's inconsistent. A few weeks ago she suggested that I lay on the couch - she waited over a year to suggest this change thinking that with a lack of visual contact with her I would feel alone. She placed a paper-towel against the cushion for beneath my head. It felt disposable, silly; I asked its purpose and she said for hygiene. I asked if I might place my sweater there instead. When sitting, I would shift my gaze between her face, to the left, and the far-window, to the right, with a pleasant view of the San Gabriels. From my new vantage, I examined the print above the couch (it is red, her favorite color; this red is deep crimson; the carpet, to differentiate is the color of wine), and the wire hexagons set into the glass in the near-window, beyond which, quite close, is a tan brick wall.
I read a book by Margaret Little on her experience in analysis with Winnicott. I immediately put myself in the place of Little, and AS in the place of DW. (more must be said on this account: I am not like Little - although there are a few similarities - and i feel too embarrassed to get into the differences: my problems pale in comparison; more worrisome, my ego wishes AS to have DW's renown -- how shallow to seek validation of one's uniqueness, one's interesting qualities, on the therapist's couch -- this perhaps exacerbated by our weekly discussions of my fee, the threshold I cross when I occasionally cancel -- that I do not properly value out time together, and can't afford, either, to come more often, as one typically would in analysis).
Winnicott, with Little, sacrifices himself. He holds her head in his hands and calls it her rebirth.
I sheepishly mention my reading to AS; she praises Winnicott's work and offers to lend me his writings.