My daughter Amelia calls over Skype from her apartment in rural Spain next to the Portuguese border. She is 23. “Look at this,” she says. The webcam displays a bandaged leg, a sprain resulting from playing rugby. Amelia was born two months early in the D.C. hospital where President Ronald Reagan had been treated for […]
Archives for July 2014
Procrastination and the Fear of Death
If a psychoanalyst, testing his associations, had suddenly said to Mr. Salter the word “farm” the surprising response would have been “Bang!”—for he had once been blown up and buried while sheltering in a farm in Flanders. It was his single intimate association with the soil. It had left him with the obstinate although admittedly […]
Touch
Many days, often many weeks, go by and no one touches me. Not a handshake. Not a friendly pat on the arm, not a hug nor a kiss. Alone. Yesterday, Dr. Siddiqui asked for a second time, “You live alone?” surprised as I get off the table on which he removed the tumor and onto my […]
Legacy
When I lived in D.C. for 17 years, I followed local custom and saw a therapist. The District of Columbia has the highest percentage of people in therapy than any community in the U.S. The late Dr. Paul Weisberg, a brilliant and often helpful psychiatrist with an astonishingly eccentric streak, predicted in 1981 at a […]
Fear
It is 2:33 in the morning. I have an appointment today to see a surgeon to decide whether to operate—specifically to perform a minor procedure; namely, remove a small tumor from my belly. As with the three biopsies I have had in the past, consulting a surgeon on whether to operate is a formality. Dr. […]
The new bard of Pennsylvania’s Rust Belt is Eric Church; this is our anthem
He comes back to his hometown for a funeral. His hometown is devastated by decay, crumbling buildings, and burned out cars. He sings “Thinkin’ about you sittin’ there sayin’ I hate this, I hate it “If you couldn’t stand livin’ here why’d you take it, take it.” There is pathos in Eric Church‘s voice because […]
July 2014 Motto
“Beneath every literature there is a philosophy. Beneath every work of art an idea of nature and of life…. Whoever plants the one, plants the other…. Place in all the minds of any age a grand idea of nature and of life, so that they feel and produce it with their whole heart and strength, […]