To Victoria

I’m off to Victoria today.

I’m very happy that both today and tomorrow are predicted to be beautiful days. Chalise will be able to walk Sheba comfortably and I will be relaxed and enthused about driving to Victoria and back. 

When I get back, I recover on Tuesday, Bev comes to visit from Nanaimo on Wednesday and on Thursday I go to Nanaimo to see my eye surgeon. Phew!

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I watched a super interesting movie called Jimmy P. It’s a story about the diagnosis and treatment of a Native American army vet named Jimmy Picard by a French anthropologist and psychoanalyst named Georges Devereux. It’s based on a true story and stars Benecio del Toro as Jimmy and he is excellent in the role.

It’s not a film for everyone, that’s for sure, but for me it was arresting because his condition is very close to mine but the talk therapy treatment he receives is very different than mine with Dr. S. I learned a lot from the film. Perhaps the most moving moment for me was Devereux explaining to Jimmy what his condition is.

He tells Jimmy that he probably has scars on his body for which he can’t remember the details of the injury. I immediately thought of the scar on my eye. It’s been there all my life but I have no idea what happened to me to get it. Devereux says to Jimmy, “Well the mind is like the body; it has scars from past events. But unlike body scars, the effect of mind scars can be ameliorated by searching out the cause of the injury and understanding it.”

Roger Ebert said this about the film: “Those who have undergone such treatment will appreciate how accurately the film portrays the process, never simplifying anything, never going for the easy dramatic epiphany, always respecting how analyst and patient circle around and around the edges of meaning.”

I’ll never forget this film and all I learned from it. It meant as much to me as a great session with Dr. S.