Ep. 70- Therapy Session
Hello, readers. Lately I’ve been jumping straight into Alice without much introduction. But in the past I’ve opened various episodes- sometimes as a narrator, other times as myself, the writer. Today I’m not here as either one- I’m just me, a human, and I wanted to speak for a moment about some personal matters. They do eventually touch back to Alice, so I hope you’ll forgive this small delay.
For the past week I have been grieving the loss of two old friends who I knew well in a different season of my life.
One was entirely expected and I had the good fortune of being allowed an opportunity have a few last words with them before they passed. If you ever have such an opportunity to get a few last words with someone- do it. Leave nothing unsaid. It makes all the difference.
The other was expected in a different but more painful way- the kind of tragedy you see coming but do nothing to stop because its violence takes place over the drudgery of years and is impossible to confront. There’s no closure. You just deal without letting it swallow you whole.
I once thought myself gifted with a pragmatic disposition toward death. When grandparents, extended family or acquaintances passed on, I rarely felt more than a primal sense of relief to still be alive. Both of my grandfathers were remote men who were ailing for years before they passed. My grandmother was lost to the ravages of Alzheimer’s for just as long before dying of old age. Once, I got word of an acquaintance I particularly disliked passing on and my first words were “I’m glad I outlived them”. Other brushes with death were too far removed from me to earn any reaction more consequential than that.
But I’ve learned over the past year that I was wrong about myself. I was simply lucky enough not to have experienced death in a way that hit home. But grief eventually found my door in unexpected ways and I learned that yes, I could respond to death the way we all do- with anger, with sadness, with confusion and even empathy.
I’m of an age now where news of death is a given. People I know will start to die as we emerge from the shepherded protection of those early pastures. Emerging from this past week I’m a bit more educated about what that might look like and how I might respond. I also have a slightly better sense of what I believe happens in death. It isn’t a very complicated or educated view, but something I’ve gathered from my visceral reaction in many such cases.
Whatever happens, the only certain thing is that what makes us quintessentially human departs and becomes unreachable. Whether by transit or extinguished- the tragedy is in the miracle of a complicated life going absent in the blink of an eye. The pain is in the depth and breadth of the black hole it leaves behind.
Which brings us back to Alice. At its heart, Alice is a story about absence. And what better way to describe death than the ultimate absence? Where a person once was, now there is nothing. The bigger the space they took, the more acute the loss. Every character in Alice is dealing with a loss- Pale Horse seeks his rider, the Queen seeks her kingdom, the Knight of Cups his lost king and queen, and so on.
Alice, herself, was a character born from an immense sense of personal loss- the loss of purpose, the absence of a will to live on. While I’m loathe to give away too much- her flashbacks, visions and her beginning place in this journey all give breath to the very real anxieties of existing in a world of overwhelming absence. In time, we may meet some of the folks who stand at the heart of that loss.
Ultimately it is no coincidence that this story is about a modern girl teaming up with the mythical pale horse of Death. Because Death is at the center of this story, just as it takes centerstage in all stories, ready or not.
This week’s episode is dedicated to two old friends passed on- one, a dear colleague and peer, the other a long lost love. May they each find rest in their own way.
montage
A series of black and white sequences.
A) Alice, in a convenience store uniform, standing behind a counter. A second figure, face unseen, is bent down stocking a nearby shelf. They wear a heavy black hoodie.
B) Alice, now in her apartment, picking up a package at the door. Opening it, she finds the heavy black hoodie.
C) Alice on an apartment balcony, smoking. She wears the hoodie. A cold wind blows, disturbing vined plants hanging from the balcony and ringing a nearby windchime. Alice pulls up the hood, tugging the strings to shut it tightly around her face.
int. therapy office day
A small office, modern, seashell white and muted grays. A set of dated floral pattern chairs set against a coffee table with tissues, a thermos and pair of ceramic coffee cups.
Alice sits in one of the chairs. In her lap, folded neatly- is the black hoodie from her montage…
