...as runs one of my favourite movie lines, spoken by a man who has so fallen in love with the Scottish village he's moved to that he offers to swap places with the man who owns the hotel and pub, Gordon.
And speaking of favourites, yesterday morning I awakened to a Desert Island Discs that featured one of my favourite songs, which itself features what may perhaps be my favourite rock song line of all time - at the very least one in my top five. The song is Don Henley's "The Boys of Summer," and the line comes quite near the end. In fact, I'm far from alone in my admiration of it; it seems to be the song's most famous line: "Out on the road today I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac." Man I love that line! It appears that it's the song's most famous line because of what it symbolises, but I have zero interest in its meaning, symbolic or otherwise. For me, there's just something about the sound of it. It's the double alliterations, of course, and probably also the assonance: "I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac." There's also something about the fact that all the alliterative sounds are plosives, and in particular that they alternate two of my favourite plosives, t and c/k, with the d's. But there's also just something about the rhythm of the line. Henley sings it as "I saw a Deadhead stickerona CAdillac," and that hurrying of the middle syllables, especially given their t/k vowels, the slight rush ending on the slightly elongated "Ca," makes the line so tight, and so pleasant and tidy on the ear. Oooo, I just love it.
Incidentally, if you want a demonstration of how a cover can destroy a song, go here.
So, in other news, I'm shopping for a therapist. I don't feel I need to enter into long-term therapy again (to be honest, I think I've had enough of that, and it's time for me to stand on my own feet), but I would like to get some help shoring up some areas that have always been problematic for me: rage and despair. I always have had a lot of rage - most essentially passive and shy people do, I suppose - but for perhaps the last six or so months I've been aware of the extent to which it's moved closer to the surface, just as I've been aware of the way in my sense of being a rat alone in a narrow box, and being doomed always to be such, has increased. So I picked two therapists, one after an internet search and one on the recommendation of a friend, and I saw them both last week.
One of the therapists is female, and one male. I saw the female first. The truth is, I'm prejudiced against female therapists, because I had one for a while who was of essentially no use to me, and whose approach was a kind of snuggly empathetic support that I didn't care for. So I went to this woman with some trepidation. I found her...empathetic and vaguely Rogerian! For the first half of the session she kept repeating back everything I said, with slight variations in language, which grated. That being said, I did have a breakthrough, perhaps even two, right there in the first session. Hmm...
Two days later I went to the male. His office is on top of an antique shop, so points for loveliness. I didn't much like him, but in a way I felt this might be an advantage, because I expend a good deal of energy, even in therapy, in trying to get my therapist to like me, so it struck me that a relationship in which I didn't care whether or not he liked me could save some time. In his session, I came close to crying - I told him the whole Mr. Fallen story, and as I always do in telling it came near to tears. This seemed to me to bode well, as it suggested that I would be emotionally open with him. Plus, he came out swinging with a schedule, suggesting that we work with each other until Christmas. Hmm...
So now I'm torn...Slightly touchy-feely woman with whom I had a breakthrough, or slightly off-putting man in whose office I was emotionally open? (Actually, to be fair, I might have had a breakthrough there, too. He wanted to know my background, and when I was finished telling him all the places I'd lived, he said, "You've moved around a lot...it seems you've never really put down roots." I said, "Well, I'm my root." And he said, "Yes, but it means you don't have deep connections, or deep relationships." But I'm not sure that's true, because I form close relationships very quickly. But I'm not sure it's not true, because I do and have for many years felt essentially alone. So was it a breakthrough or not? Damn you, psyche, with your sneaky ways!) Woman or man? Schedule or no schedule? I'm leaning toward the woman, largely because in our meeting I discussed the actual problem I was there for, rather than my general background, so I feel we're more focussed. But I've decided to have one more session with her before deciding for sure.
I've never had to choose between therapists before. Of course, there's a certain irony it, given that my character ensures I'll be mortified when I have to say "no" to one, and will be unable to admit that I was deciding between two, lest the unchosen one be wounded. See, now, that's something I could discuss in therapy.
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