We Are the Light by Matthew Quick
For the wise and generous Jungian who finally got me to click my heels together three times. Thank you.
VOCATUS ATQUE NON VOCATUS DEUS ADERIT
“Invoked or not invoked, the god is present.”
—WRITTEN ON CARL JUNG’S HEADSTONE
1.
Dear Karl,
First, I want to apologize for coming to your consulting room even after receiving the letter saying you were no longer practicing and, therefore, could no longer be my—or anyone else’s—analyst.
I realize that your consulting room is connected to your home and since you’ve stopped practicing it’s probably become part of your house now, making it off-limits to me. I was on autopilot. Every Friday night at seven p.m. for almost fourteen months. That’s a hard habit to break. And psyche kept saying, “Go. Karl needs you,” which was initially confusing because I’m the analysand and you are the analyst, so I’m supposed to need you and not the other way around. But you always told me to listen to psyche and that the goal of analysis was to individuate and know the Self well enough to align with it. Well, my psyche really wants a relationship with you. It keeps saying you need my help. Also, Darcy told me to keep going to analysis. And I just generally wanted to go, as well. I’ve really missed our weekly “analytic container,” our two hours. Friday nights.
It was hard to manage everything without our sessions, especially at first. Many people offered to find me a new you, but I kept telling everyone I’d wait for Karl. I have to admit, I didn’t initially think I’d be waiting so long. Please don’t feel bad. The last thing I want to do is guilt-trip you, especially given all we’ve been through, collectively and individually. I just want you to understand. And you always say that I should tell you everything and never hold back.
I, too, haven’t been able to return to work since the tragedy. I tried a few times, but never made it out of my car. I just sat there in the faculty parking lot watching the students streaming into the building. Some would look over at me with concerned expressions and I couldn’t tell whether I wanted them to help me or if I wanted to be invisible. It was the strangest sensation. Do you ever feel that way? I’d grip the steering wheel so hard my knuckles would turn white.
Isaiah—my boss and friend and principal of Majestic High, in case you forgot—eventually would come out and sit down in my passenger seat. He’d put his hand on my shoulder and tell me that I’d helped a lot of kids already and now it was time to help myself. He comes to my house all the time too. Because he’s very religious, he’ll say, “Lucas, you’re one of the best men I’ve ever met and I’m absolutely sure Jesus has a plan for you.” Sometimes he and his wife, Bess, cook me dinner in my own kitchen, which is nice. They bring all the food and everything. Bess always says, “Lucas, you have to eat. You’re wasting away to nothing,” and it’s true. Isaiah’s a great friend. A good man. Bess is a fantastic woman. But Darce—you’ll remember that’s what I sometimes call Darcy, dropping the last syllable—says I can’t tell anyone about her transformation, and so it’s hard, because I can only nod and press my lips together whenever Isaiah and Bess say God has a plan for me, which makes them think I’m agreeing, rather than holding in a tremendous secret.
I went to their church a few Sunday mornings, back in January, for what Isaiah calls “worship.” I was the only white person there, which was interesting. I like the gospel singing. The first time I went, the purple-and-gold-robed pastor called me up to the altar and put his hand on my head and loudly prayed for me. Then he asked everyone in the congregation to come up and lay their hands on me while they also prayed. I’ve never in my life had so many hands on me. It was a kind gesture that I appreciated, but the funny thing was that I couldn’t stop shaking, even when the touching and praying ceased and the singing started again, which was uplifting. I thought I was having a seizure.
I kept going to Sunday service, but after a few weeks no one prayed for me anymore and I kind of felt like I was invading something—like maybe I was an interloper. When I told him how I felt, Isaiah said, “Ain’t no unwelcomed guests in God’s house,” which was nice, but Darcy said I shouldn’t wear out my welcome and so I stopped going to church, even though I liked and maybe even needed it. Perhaps I’ll go back at the end of the year for the Christmas season if Isaiah keeps asking me. Darcy said maybe that would be okay.
Last December, I attended seventeen of the eighteen funerals. Well, at least part of each. The funeral homes tried to make it so that no two services overlapped, because that’s the way we bereaved wanted it. But a few funerals ended up partially conflicting, mostly because everyone wanted their burials to happen before Christmas. I would have made at least an appearance at all eighteen, but the police wouldn’t let me into Jacob Hansen’s service. And I have to say your Leandra’s—which I attended in its entirety—was perhaps the best. I liked the way you personalized everything and resisted a more traditional format. I didn’t even know your wife played the cello until you showed that video of her in your living room the day before the tragedy. It made me realize how one-sided analysis can be, since you knew almost everything about my Darcy, and yet, I didn’t know your Leandra’s profession. I’m not sure I even knew her name before the tragedy, which is hard to believe, especially since we’d see you two at the Majestic Theater and we’d always exchange waves and smiles from a respectable non-boundary-crossing distance.