Creatures of a Day: And Other Tales of Psychotherapy by Irvin D. Yalom Read Free Book Online

and describe all the thoughts that run across it, almost as though you were watching a screen.”
    After exhaling and flashing a look of exasperation, Natasha leaned her head against the back of her chair and whispered, “My life is in danger, my life is in danger,” and then grew silent.
    After a minute or two, I prodded her, “A little louder, please.”
    “I know what you want to hear.”
    “And you don’t want to say it to me.”
    She nodded.
    “Try imagining this,” I continued. “You continue to be silent here today until our time is up. Imagine you are leaving my office. How then would you feel?”
    “All right! I’ll say it! Of course my life is in danger! I’m sixty-nine years old. How much life do I have ahead? My life was all back there. My real life!”
    “Your real life? You mean on the stage, dancing with Sergei?”
    “Did you ever dance?”
    “Only tap dancing. I used to imitate all the Fred Astaire routines, sometimes at home, sometimes outside on the street.”
    Natasha’s eyes popped open, and she stared at me in astonishment.
    “I’m joking. I’m one of the world’s worst dancers, but I’m an avid watcher, and I can imagine how glorious it was for you to perform before those large applauding audiences.”
    “You’re quite playful for a psychiatrist, you know. And a bit seductive.”
    “How is that for you?”
    “Just right.”
    “Good. Then teach me about the real life back then.”
    “Life was so exhilarating. The crowds, the photographers, the heavenly music, the costumes, and Sergei—believe me, one of the most beautiful men in the world—and the alcohol and the intoxication of the dance and, yes, the wild sex. Everything that has followed pales in comparison.” Natasha, who had been sitting on the edge of her chair as she spoke, now relaxed and leaned back.
    “Where do your thoughts go now?”
    “Here’s something I should tell you: lately I’ve been having a strange thought, that every day I live now, even a very good day, is also a day of sorrow because it takes me further and further from my real life. Is that not odd?”
    “It’s as I said earlier. It’s as though that real life still exists in suspended animation. And if we had the right transportation, we could go to it, and you could show me around and point out all the familiar things. You know what I mean?”
    When Natasha nodded, I went on. “And in a way that idea is the key to understanding your trip to the museum. You weren’t just looking for Sergei; you were looking for your lost life, even though the adult part of your mind knows that everything is transient, that the past exists only in the mind and your early world is now only a memory, an electric or chemical signal stored somewhere in your brain.
    “Natasha,” I continued, “I understand your situation in life. I’m a lot older than you, and I am dealing with the same issues. For me one of the darkest things about death is that when I die, my whole world—that is, my world of memories, that rich world peopled by everyone I’ve ever known, that world that seems so rooted in granite—will vanish with me. Poof! Just like that. The last couple of weeks I’ve been cleaning out boxes of old papers and photos, and I look at them, perhaps a picture of some street in my childhood neighborhood or some friend or relative whom no one else alive ever knew, and I throw them away, and each time I do, something shudders inside as I see pieces of my old real world flaking away.”
    Natasha drew a deep breath and in a softer voice said, “I understand everything you say. Thank you for telling me that. It means a lot when you speak personally like this. I know you speak the truth, but it is hard to absorb such truth. I tell you something: right now, at this very moment, I feel Sergei vibrating in my mind. I know he struggles to stay there, to stay in existence, dancing forever.”
    “I want to say something more about Sergei,” I told her. “I know a