I woke up one morning and I wasn’t there. Where I was, I don’t know. I did know this was not okay. For soon, I had to go to work. Going to work as a psychotherapist is a funny business. Some jobs you can go to work on automatic, turn part of yourself off and function. My functioning insists on connection. In order to connect, to be present with my patients, I need authentic access to myself . So I made a plan. Walk to my office and give myself all the time I need to, arrive; as slowly as possible. And that’s what I did. I put my comfy shoes on, put the good ones in my backpack and I was ready to begin.
I took a few steps and then paused and looked to my right. This was a modest house I had glanced at before, grey with a dark red door and with a silver metal sculpture with an opening in copper of what? I don’t know, but this front yard ambiance was deliberately, if quietly, intriguing. I paused to get my bearings and looked up to peruse the sky colors and I was there. Right where I was. Gone no more. I opened my ears as well. I listened for birds, for planes, for voices, for squeaks. I continued walking very slowly. I observed my gait, the way my thigh muscles lift my leg up. I befriended my breath. By the time I reached my office/my lair, I was both emptied and full of life. As I entered the waiting room I saw a colleague/friend who had just returned from Paris. He had a similar experience, allowing leisure and pleasure, coffee and strolls and I thought, “For now this is my Paris”.