🎧 Chapter Forty-Two | As Within, So Without. As Above, So Below.
Where Healing Begins in the Space Between Memory and Dreams
What you need to know:
Having taken the final, even fatal step of filing a complaint against Dr. Rick, Jennifer now walks forward into the dark shadows of her dreams, trusting that with the right support and help, she’ll be shown the way.
Chapter Forty-Two
As Within, So Without. As Above, So Below
“Welcome, welcome,” Elenore says. She is an older woman with thinning gray-white hair arranged in a twist at the top of her head. Stately. Solid. She wears a kimono-style jacket. Soft textured black pants. Sensible shoes.
At her office door on the main floor of Abrams building, she waves me to come in.
On one side of the room is a stack of ornate shelves jammed with books and a reading table. The Jungian Library, she will tell me later, with books that can be checked out by those who work in the building. The other portion of the room, the larger part, is her space with a roll-top desk, a coat stand in the corner, a sitting area with a sofa and two easy chairs arranged in front of a grand but retired fireplace. On the marble hearth, an old-fashioned space heater with coils that glow orange.
I unbutton my raincoat.
Elenore, like a coat check girl now, waits and then takes it from me. Turning, she hooks it on the coat rack.
I stand there a moment, feeling odd, and slightly off center but then rouse myself to sit in one of the two easy chairs.
Elenore follows and sits, too.
We face one another in those chairs. Me unsure again but then I dig into my purse and pull out a swath of papers. “I know you said to bring just one,” I say, paging through and handing her half the pile. “But I’ve had several dreams since we spoke on the phone.”
“Perfectly fine,” Elenore says, takes the sheets and glances through them.
When I set this appointment via a phone conversation, Elenore told me to pay attention to my dreams in the coming days. When I could remember one, I was to type it up, including the date on top, and then bring two copies (one for her and one for me) to our meeting. They were the kind of instructions I loved. Specific. Clear.
We hadn’t talked about money, though I asked a couple of times during that initial call. “Oh, don’t worry about that yet,” Elenore said.
Just like Abrams.
Just like Trish.
I now ease my oversized purse on the floor by my feet. Straighten my own pile of papers on my lap.
Elenore snugs the pages onto a clipboard. “Let’s start with your waking life,” she says, setting the clipboard on a low table next to her chair. “Then we’ll look at one or two of these.”
A similar table is positioned next to my chair and is topped with a box of tissue and a palmed sized clock. I consider setting my copies aside but hold onto them instead. “You mean, you want me to tell you what’s going on right now?”
“Exactly.”