Still-Life
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“Let’s agree to disagree on this subject,” I said.
“Look,” he said. “She’s a canvas. No heart, no veins, no blood, no central nervous system. She’s nada, no soul, either.”
“You’re nothing but a cruel dude,” I said. “You’re too mean for us polite folks.”
Shrinks now agree that Libby should have noted my increased isolation, my vanishing left and right eyebrows, which I plucked wildly one drunken New Year’s Eve, up until I finished the daunting task at 9:57 p.m. the following day. Chatting profusely with a lifeless canvas for multiple months, maybe even years. But to me, L was a fun and dynamic, she helped me escape my toxic reality and flew so high into outer space with me. L kept my brain relatively positive before the storm of malaise devoured me, nearly wiping me off the map.
Allow me to discuss clarity now, though, and the importance of that word in my life – it was something Dr. Owl mentioned when her and I hit it off at the clinic many decades ago, as we first began. Dr. Owl was the first kind woman with a gentle voice that I met at the hospital when I was thirteen. She told me to write everything down on the yellow legal pad and I haven’t stopped yet, although I use Bic pens now. I had an iPad for about eight days, but it was stolen by a shifty, visiting MSW named Claire from Santa Cruz, so now I’m back using blue ink with the legal pad. 
Dr. Owl rescued me – grasped my wrist like a clamp and dragged me out of my haunted dungeon, kicking and screaming past every demon. “Can we call our sessions by a different, sexier name?”
“What’s wrong with counseling sessions?” she asked. 
“I like Shangri La,” I said, “or filibuster. What do you think?”
“Don’t be nonsensical, Ted,” she said. “Clarity is essential.” 
At first, I thought that was silly on Dr. Owl’s part. “I mean, you can’t stop every interaction,” I said. “At a grocery, a school bus, or maybe a high school dance, and say before I speak, eat, touch, spit, piss, and think, I must be clear.” 
“Why can’t someone say that?” Dr. Owl asked. “Sounds like a wonderful habit to get into.”
“Maybe you’re right,” I said. “Maybe I could try using more clarity.”
I found Dr. Owl aided me in a very gallant way. At first, the mental health storms rushed through me so thoroughly I damaged different parts of Lilac – her neck, collarbone, left forearm, once on her alluring face, and another time on her wide bottom with a steak knife. How did I ever escape that electricity? A few lightning bolts struck so near to me they caused psychic and internal pain, ugly rip tides, emotive tsunamis, and enraged Oedipal surges. It took me numerous years, some luck, and me trusting Dr. Owl’s vision to find our way back to the world of decent health and a better life. 
Since forever, I’ve adored long, sloping female necks. I was sad to learn Irish singer Sinead O’Conner had passed on. She had the most glorious neck back in the nineties. Her thin neck meandered wonderfully. Rocker Annie Lenox was high on the list, too.