Curiosity, 39 Autumns, and Healing

Reflections on ending a season of therapy

Recently, I’ve taken a break from my weekly meetings with my therapist. Don’t worry—in no way do I feel like I’ve arrived at the end of my healing journey (at least some of my online interactions have taught me that). But I started therapy again soon after I published my first book The God Who Sees.

Delving into my immigration story in that book brought up a lot of things that I’d packed away securely for decades and hoped never to unpack; but it’s the nature of writing to bring to the surface the stuff locked away, and I wanted, no…needed, a companion as I processed many of these things.

My therapist Jazmin, a fellow Latina, was instrumental in helping me to face the many things I’d turned my back on (most notably my mother’s death when I was 17) and that I thought I could manage just fine, even as I burst into tears when I read aloud from my book at public readings.

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FINE

Jazmin says that it’s a truism in therapist circles that F-I-N-E means “feelings I’m not expressing.” What’s interesting about that is that it’s often easy to see…in other people’s lives.

I just finished reading a touching and heartfelt book titled A Man Called Ove by the Swedish writer Fredrik Backman. You may have read it or seen the movie with Tom Hanks, A Man Called Otto, that’s loosely based on Backman’s book (read the book—it’s much better!). Ove is the epitome of FINE—a curmudgeon who has experienced multiple tragedies since childhood, but stuffs them neatly away and, with a very grumpy disposition, keeps telling the whole world (including himself) that’s he’s fine.

To those reading or viewing, it’s clear to see that Ove is, in fact, not fine—he is lonely and experiencing an all-consuming grief after the death of his wife. It is also clear to Ove’s neighbors who refuse to let his gruff exterior keep him alone with his grief and suicidal intentions. By their sheer needs as fellow human beings in his circle, they elbow their way into his life and ultimately save it.

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Curiosity Not Judgment

A professor I had in seminary, who was both a psychologist and an ordained minister, told our class once that the majority of people in the world aren’t able to see a therapist, either because of cost, cultural taboos about therapy, or accessibility. That’s why, he said, it was our job as fellow human beings to hold one another’s stories and be engaged, curious listeners. Curious as opposed to judgmental, not as in prying.

And that’s perhaps the most important lesson I’ve learned in therapy: to reflect on my own experiences not with judgment for myself or others but with curiosity.

As I’ve been working on my new book, a work of creative nonfiction about my mother, I have tried to approach it with this perspective in mind. It has been difficult, especially this last week which was the anniversary of her death. But it has been so good for me to step back and approach these memories with curiosity—in fact, it has reframed my memories.

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39 Autumns

My mom didn’t even live to see her 40th birthday. I never knew her as a person, but only as my mom, as she appears in this picture. I have a hard time imagining some of the stories I’ve learned about her from the people who knew her well.

My mom with my brother and me sometime in the 1970’s

My earliest memories of her involve the worries and cares of marriage and motherhood–I can’t even imagine having had a baby at 22 (and 3 by the time she was 28). I wish I had gotten a chance to know her as an adult, where we could have been friends instead of adversaries (as we were when she died, and I was a teenager seeking independence).

She didn’t really grow up in a stable home, nor did she find a supportive partner when she built her own home. And all of that was aggravated by the immigrant life that’s so hard because people don’t value you as a human being but only as a laborer.

So this writing season has been one of grief, remembering, and wondering what might have been. I’m trying to hold all of it and not rush to a resolution or being to hard on myself or her. It’s a fine balance to write about her without turning her into a saint, a martyr, or a villain. I want to embrace her complex humanity.

Would love to hear from you and hear what you’re most looking forward to this autumn. I encourage you, dear reader, to be curious.

With hope,

Karen