9:27 p.m. - March 23, 2005
Take me too, while you're at it
What strikes me most now, hours after the event, was how calm he was, open and honest and relieved. I was envious then and am now, haven't been able to shake the image of a handcuffed man waiting for an ambulance to arrive to take him away for at least three days. An apparent breakdown; he became angry at an anger-management group session (superlatively apropos), sought to demonstrate to the therapist just how it was he hit his wife to teach her a lesson, and freaked out when told to stand back. He threw furniture, broke a window, said he wanted to die and kill the therapist, sat in a corner and howled. Howled, and my eyes watered not out of pity for this man, but because that's what I want to do sometimes - am I ever not selfish? (Narcissism, Jason, narcissism) - and while unaware of what lead to the breakdown, I understood in a fundamental, elemental non-cognitive manner: When drowning, thrust your hands up even if they don't breach the surface. There is nobility in vulnerability, isn't there? Witnessing this man's distress made me feel privileged, as if when stripped naked of self-restraint all one sees is Plato's really real, or Saussure's signified. I've been thinking about these events for most of the day, wishing I too could be honest, naked before people.
Tucson postponed their training to June, so I have this weekend to myself at home. Knowing I have time to call my own feels good.
