Look

Three tales.

I saw a counsellor on Thursday. I had never seen a counsellor before but I thought it would be good to add a mental health professional to my team, to mirror the stretching and healing that my other therapies are doing. I found that I felt somewhat freaked out to have a person look at me and listen to me and attend to me intently for fifty minutes. I don't know if I have ever had that before. Challenging, but in a good way. He is of the opinion that my 'dialed up' emotional reactions since the accident are a classic reaction of post-traumatic stress. Given what I've read, I think he's onto something, albeit a moderate version. So we'll work on that in the new year, and work it will be, having him be all attentive and perceptive, but good work. It's a complex tug-of-war of wanting to be seen, and also not wanting to be seen.

As I pulled my kitchen trash bag out of its bin this morning I saw out of the kitchen window a stout elderly man with a tweed hat standing outside my neighbour's front door. He was carrying a tell-tale black portfolio stuffed with brochures. My neighbour gets a lot of visits from the Jehovah's Witnesses for some reason; I think he's on a List. They never stop by my house. He stood there for a long while and by the time I had emptied the rubbish from other rooms into the bag he had gone. Imagine my surprise, then, when I whipped open the front door, trash bags in my hand, to come face to face with him, as if by magic, hand raised to knock. I could see the pores on his nose. I normally hear people tromping up the stairs but he had been eerily quiet. It is not good to scare a person with post-traumatic stress. I continued edging out of the door to keep the conversation outside. He asked me if I ever thought about what the Bible teaches. I said that I did and that I was a Christian. He then recited how Christmas makes people think of Jesus, and if I ever thought about Jesus. Now, I don't want to paint all JWs with the same brush, but what bothers me about their approach is that I felt talked at. He clearly didn't see me as a person. Told about Jesus. Check. Handed out brochures, amount: two. Check. As I followed him back down the stairs to the bin he looked at my car and said, 'How do you like driving a Volvo?' and we had a little conversation about cars. I wanted to tell him to lead with that next time.

A week or so ago as I waited at the lights to turn left, a man was wandering up and down the median carrying a cardboard sign 'homeless and hungry' with one hand and gesticulating with the other, as he carried out a conversation with an unseen addressee. I decided to give him money. I realized I didn't care how he chose to spend it, but that I wanted him to know that I had seen him. He said 'thank you ma'am' and I looked him the in the eye and replied 'Merry Christmas' and the lights changed.