Chapter 13
Cheyenne opened the door and Mary Louise immediately began to relax. Not in a “it’s lovely here at the spa” way, but in a “I don’t have to wear a mask here” way. Pixie had been banished and the cushy green chair was smiling at her. Cheyenne offered her tea and Mary Louise accepted it. The time it took for Cheyenne to prepare the tea provided a nice transition for Mary Louise where she had a few minutes to adjust the switchboard in her mind. Mind = Open. Anxiety = Pause. Fear = Suspended. Hope = Possible.
They settled in, Mary Louise sipping her tea and Cheyenne getting her notebook ready.
“Can I ask you a question?” said Mary Louise.
Cheyenne said, “Of course. This is your time.”
“But it’s not about me. It’s about you.”
“The answer is still yes,” said Cheyenne.
In the old days, the days before Cheyenne had helped the real Mary Louise crawl out from behind her shields of politeness and timidness, she would never have had the guts to ask her question.
“The painting you made for Dottie. The one hanging in the hall by the powder bath.”
Cheyenne clasped her hands in thought, eyes searching the ceiling for a vision of the painting Mary Louise was asking about.
“Oh, yes. I know the one. What about it?”
“Is it really…I mean…” Mary Louise hesitated, then looked into Cheyenne’s piercing dark eyes. She stepped up to the new Mary Louise and said, “Is that really dog poo?” She whispered the “dog poo” part. Some very small part of her guessed that if true, it might have been Pixie’s and even though she didn’t like the little dog, she certainly didn’t want to risk offending her.
Cheyenne laughed. “Yes, I really used dog poo for the texture.”
“Why?” asked Mary Louise, processing the fact that Dottie wasn’t just teasing her.
Cheyenne smiled and closed her eyes for a moment before answering.
“One of my first clients was a woman who spent most of the first two sessions telling me everything in her life was shit. Her marriage was shit, her kids were shits, her job was shit. After the second session, I was taking Pixie for a walk and she stopped to take a poop in front of a beautiful field of wildflowers. The idea came to me that maybe I could change this client’s perspective so I picked up that pile of poop, came back here and created a canvas using it for the wildflower petals.”
Mary Louise pictured Cheyenne in front of her canvas, probably using a face mask, transforming poop into wildflowers.
“When I showed it to her, she said how beautiful it was. I told her it was shit. When she argued with me, I told her about the Pixie poop. I suggested that sometimes we can take shit and turn it into something beautiful.”
“And how did she react to that?”
“She got it. She was a little annoyed at first, like I’d played a trick on her. In a way I had, but it served as an illustration to show her that she could change. I had it hanging on the wall behind me here for a while and during our next few sessions, whenever she said something was shit I’d point up to the picture. She finally stopped labeling everything ‘shit’ and we got down to some real work around why she was so unhappy.”
Now an abstract painting covered in deep blues and black hung on the wall above Cheyenne. White drips began at the top of the canvas but didn’t quite finish their journey to the bottom. Mary Louise couldn’t decide whether or not she liked it. It was probably the drips. She had an overwhelming desire to grab a tissue and dab them.
Cheyenne looked down at her notebook then up at Mary Louise. “So how did you do with your homework?”
“I said it every day, two times a day.”
“And?”
“And I’m still struggling with it.”
Cheyenne looked thoughtful for a moment, eyes down and lips lightly pursed. “Have you ever been to the Grand Canyon?” she asked.
“No,” said Mary Louise.
“That’s where we’re headed next week for vacation.”
Mary Louise gave a half smile. “I hear it’s lovely.”
“You’ve seen pictures though?”
Mary Louise nodded.
“Let’s go there,” suggested Cheyenne. “Close your eyes for a minute.”
Mary Louise complied.
“Imagine there’s a railing in front of you. You’re holding on to it very tightly. There’s a slight wind and the last thing you want is to fall down into the canyon below. You look down and all you can imagine is falling down onto the rocks. Maybe the trees would stop you. Maybe they wouldn’t.”
Mary Louise could feel the cold steel pipe in her hands. As she imagined herself falling she held on tighter.
“Now look up. There are no clouds in the sky. It is the most beautiful blue you’ve ever seen. You look out and see bright sunshine lighting up the canyon walls and the colors are breathtaking. Oranges, pinks, greens, purples. Intense beauty everywhere you look.”
Mary Louise could see it. She could almost feel the sunshine on her face.
“Let go of the rail.” said Cheyenne.
Mary Louise’s eyes popped open.
“I can’t.”
Cheyenne smiled, tilting her head. “Close your eyes,” she said gently.
Mary Louise didn’t like this one bit. She didn’t like someone messing with her head. Cheyenne raised her eyebrows expectantly, like a mother who had just requested something of her child. Mary Louise sniffed. How could she wiggle her way out of this? She could grab her purse and run. But there was nothing but kindness in the dark eyes gazing at her. She ran a hand through her hair and resettled herself in the chair. She closed her eyes.
“We’re back at the rim.” Cheyenne gave her a minute to get herself back to the Grand Canyon. “Very slowly, let go with one hand.”
Mary Louise could do that. It was a compromise. She was good at compromise.
After a minute Cheyenne said, “Now let go with the other hand and take a half step back.”
Mary Louise imagined letting go with her other hand, but she took a full step back. No need to share that information with Cheyenne.
“Look out. What do you see?”
“The canyon walls. The sunlight.”
“Whenever you’re ready you can open your eyes.”
Now Mary Louise didn’t want to leave the canyon. She could almost feel the breeze, and hear rustling leaves in the trees nearby. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes.
Cheyenne gave her a moment to get her bearings and then said, “Do you know why I led you through that?”
Mary Louise knew but she remained still.
“Did holding onto that rail make you any safer than when you let go and took a small step back?”
“No,” admitted Mary Louise.
“So what am I trying to show you?”
Mary Louise closed her eyes again, returning to the lovely image of the beautiful blue sky and breathtaking canyon. She was not holding on to the rail. “That it’s okay to let go. That there is so much beauty around me, but if I’m always so focused on trying to be safe that I’ll miss it.”
“And?”
“I”m safe. And it’s okay to be happy.”
When Mary Louise opened her eyes, Cheyenne was smiling at her.
“You can’t do anything about the past,” said Cheyenne. “You’ve lived a lot of years. I’ve heard the saying, ‘No one gets out of here alive,’ which is true. Also, no one gets out of here unscathed. That’s also true. I don’t ever want to minimize the effect traumas during your life may have had on you. But I also don’t want you to park yourself there and dwell on things you probably had no control over then, and certainly don’t have any control over now. You are a beautiful, vibrant woman. It’s okay to be happy.”
“It’s okay to be happy,” repeated Mary Louise. Was it actually possible?
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