In Place By Choice

[Above photo:  Seen hiking up Dedze Mountain in Malawi in January, 2017]

29 March 2020

Monday: I twisted in the wind for two days and three nights after making arrangements on Friday to return to the US, partly in response to Embassy pressure and partly from my own anxiety.  I didn’t feel good about it, at times like a dog running away yipping, its tail between its legs. I had a dream last night:

I was in a hotel lobby and I wanted a copy of the NY Times. An employee waved his arm as a vague direction and I headed off, not really knowing where. I came to a beautiful, old wrought-iron staircase, restored from wreckage and I descended (Associated to University of Medicine 1 and other lovely colonial-era buildings scattered throughout Yangon). Walking to the right I came to a large, bleak parking lot (Associated to Costco and Home Depot in the Bay Area) and a newspaper vendor. I only had a 10,000Kyat note (about $7). I needed change (Associated to my move to the US). He said he’d help me find some so we drove some distance in his car, passing furrowed farmland and a large truck/combine coming towards us. There was also a large and beautiful deciduous tree, fully leaved excepting a perfectly round hole in the side of the canopy. As we drove by I could look in and see an entire world there, with beautiful pebble beaches, streams, and vegetation (Associated to Beach Island). We took a right turn and drove to a farmhouse where the vendor got me change and gave me the paper. I was very disappointed because for my trip seeking change I got only a single, very thin broadsheet with very little information and it was certainly not worth the search.

My associations led me to cancel my flight reservation, whereupon I immediately felt much better. The dream and my associations to it cut through my anxiety and desire to comply with the Embassy and State Department demands. Sometimes I must commit to something fully before I can realize it isn’t what I want.  The trick then is to reverse course.

My students were very pleased that we could continue class and over the course of 4 hours teaching and discussing it I was given: a cup of Myanmar tea, a lunch of spicy chicken with rice, a cup of coffee, and the conviction that we could conduct a psychotherapy case in person and run a virtual child and adolescent telepsychiatry clinic for our clinical experience, at least until the n-corona dust settles here. There are now reliable reports of large numbers of Myanmar laborers returning from Malaysia and Thailand, massing at the border. They’ll fade into the villages and the spread will begin.

After class, two of my previous students met me in the lobby of University of Medicine 1, one with 4 “country eggs” and a box of ImunActiv tablets, the other with a large container of hand sanitizer. The love and generosity of these people won’t stop. Fortuitously, Rector Professor Zaw Wai Soe, who I like a lot, was passing by and greeted us. I told him my plan to raise money (Not exactly now, I think!) for a child psychiatry training center and clinic. All I need is a commitment for the land and a professorship for one of my bright students, I said. He said, “The land is no problem. We can do it.”  He had volunteered the professorship previously. I almost fell down. It all depends on to whom you speak.  And when. And how. Well, there are many important variables.

Tuesday: After our morning class in the now-empty library (the University of Medicine 1 is closed until further notice.), we were eating lunch in the lobby, since the cafeteria is generally jammed with medical students and a perfect site for virus transmission. One of my students brought her rice cooker and heated delicious chicken soup she had made for all of us. Her husband has sent a car from Magwe to get her this evening; there is fear of a lock-down and she has two children at home. She’ll drive from 8PM to 5AM to return home. The head librarian announced that the library was closing until further notice, as soon as we finished lunch. So, we’ll do class via Zoom, which we practiced in the morning in anticipation.

After lunch two of the students drove me to my apartment because they had bought a mountain of food and household supplies for me, thinking, I suppose, that I was a helpless male. They were amazed when I brought my lunch, some chicken in great sauce and broccoli with a dressing. “Ready-made?” “No, I made it.” I sense their males cannot boil water. They certainly take good care of their Professor!

Wednesday:  I went to the “wet market”—read “street market”—this morning and stocked up. A kilo of prawns, a whole chicken, and lots of vegetables and fruit. When I got home I trimmed the veggies and parboiled them, then put them in freezer bags. I peeled the shrimp and put them in freezer bags, as well. There was a mountain of shrimp shells so I boiled them and made a bisque for later use. I simultaneously made a chicken soup in my rice cooker and  roasted the whole chicken on a rotisserie in my fancy Kangaroo toaster oven, admiring it slowly turning and dripping fat.  I had no cotton twine to bind the wings so I cut a piece from an old cotton tee-shirt, which worked fine. All in all, as long as the electricity lasts, I have enough food for a long time.

Thursday: I had my first virtual individual psychotherapy visit. It went well enough, but it certainly lacks a lot in comparison with vis a vis.

The patient is a late ‘teen who did poorly on her National Matriculation Examination and didn’t get into the field she wanted. She is now at a university studying, for her, a lessor subject. She is a bright, petite (95#, 5 feet tall) girl who was accompanied by her aunt. The latter was described by my student, who was with the patient, as 3’6” tall! The girl has always been “number 1” in her class but with that has come bullying and teasing. She has no close friends and never has. She sleeps with her mother; father sleeps in an adjacent bed in the same room. She has never had romantic feelings toward another. She states she feels “empty” and that she enjoys “nothing”. She says these both convincingly and with a certain verve. She sleeps well and is not suicisal, although she cries if she gets a bad grade or after an argument with her mother, who she says brings up her poor performance on the Matriculation Exam when she is angry. “We paid so much for you to do that.” She is cute and makes good eye contact. She notes that even at her age, her parents do not allow her to go outside alone. She states she hasn’t made friends this first year at university. “Everyone is on their phone all the time.” “I have never ridden a bike so I do it whenever I can because there are bikes at school. But everyone teases me about it.” At the end of the hour she smiled and said, “I think this is going to work.” There is an initial positive transference, although we don’t talk about the t-word in Interpersonal Therapy. The trick will be not to scare off the mother; the girl makes me think she is in the grip of a boa constrictor (my fantasy). Clearly, she is very undeveloped socially and emotionally and is heading toward a serious identity crisis, a la Erikson. But she is relatable and motivated.

I decided to demonstrate a course of brief psychotherapy, a la IPT, about which we have been reading and performing role-plays. The students seem eager for this. The difficulty for me is that after 16 visits or so, I imagine the patient will want, and need, more work and therapists aren’t interchangeable so I may be signing up for a long-term case. On the one hand, it will be useful for training and I love doing psychotherapy. On the other, at home I would never, at my age, begin what looks like a long-term case. Still, there is no one else and if I expire or leave before termination, she will have gotten something valuable. And one of the students can continue with her. Now we are struggling with bandwidth for the Zoom.

Friday: I was really lazy today. That is not a compelling first sentence!  I dozed on the couch from 9-11, then roused myself and went for a walk. I can easily avoid being close to people on the street, and many avoid me as I don’t wear a mask. I walked a bit over a mile to a shopping center, Taw Win Garden, adjacent to the hotel of the same name where I stayed for two weeks when I first arrived. On the 3^rd floor is a musical instrument store and I bought a cheap but capable Mieke (Chinese brand) electronic keyboard and a stand. Playing guitar requires steady and regular play or you lose your calluses. Then it hurts and you cannot fret well until they develop again after weeks of steady playing. With a keyboard I can play and not play and all that suffers is my playing, not my fingers. It’ll be fun with my extra free time.

I made some a delicious chicken soup with rice and watched a few episodes of the “Tiger King”, which is all in the news. What a cast of unusual people with unusual tastes and tolerances. The animals are so incredibly beautiful and so unsuited to artificial habitats and human company. They should be avoiding or eating us, not playing with us.

Saturday: Today I fiddled with my Zoom for a surprise birthday call in a week to a friend,  one of a group of us who used to work together. My good friend, Marie, and I—She is considerably my junior but still not a youngster, except with her figure, her mind, and her heart.—figured out how to make it work. Geezer techies!  Marie is a Zydeco dancer of local fame (East Bay) and keeps in great shape while having fun.

I took some garbage to the bin at the end of the block and decided to walk up my 9 floors for the first time. Outside one door were 14 pairs of shoes. Outside another were 11 pairs. And my place is half again as large.  It must be pretty brutal, cooped up like that. We now have 8 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and hundreds of thousands of overseas workers returning from Malaysia and Thailand so we’ll be lousy with virus in a month or less.

There is a fortune awaiting someone who develops a fast-food franchise in the US based on grilled cheese sandwiches. You think, “Yeah, a good one is nice occasionally, but….” I made one yesterday with Dijon mustard. Very good. But today, inspired, I used Indian Mango Pickle Relish. Holy moly! It was sensational! Think then of the various spices and flavorings and types of cheese and bread one could use.  Near-infinite variety plus married to a good soup or a fresh salad, or both, and the franchise rockets upwards. I’m struggling to limit myself to one of these a day. I shall try a different one tomorrow.

So, I’m not suffering at all; just missing the physical presence of my students and my friends.

Last night I had a virtual cocktail party—-I had a glass of beer, they each had a glass of wine—with Irene and Jose. Kelly was to join us but, for reasons unknown to me, didn’t. We talked about all manner of things, including (almost exclusively) variations on a theme by n-corona. It was a nice way to pass 1 1/2 hours, even if I’d rather be in their presence. This will be a regular thing, I think.

In addition to needing competent, decisive, fact-based leadership in a time of crisis, it is apparent how powerfully leadership style can affect the national dialogue. Anthony Fauci is in love with Hillary Clinton and is part of a DEEP STATE cabal to oust Trump?!! Maybe Tony’s face itched, he was concerned by what he was hearing and how he’d have to tactfully undo it, or he had a headache. I’d have had an oculogyric crisis, rolling my eyes as the Great Lump spewed his nonsense. I thought Dr. Fauci has been kind and politic beyond what was required of a distinguished scientific adviser.