when memories echo

i remember sitting in the old cement stairwell at back of the university where my dad taught, writting letters to god. imagining what it must be like to grow up in the inner city surounded by concrete and cement instead of farm and forest as i had. in torn jeans and old t-shirts and shoes without laces because that was cool when i was 13. i made up songs and listened to them bounce around in the empty stories above and below me. about the same time i remember sitting in therapy holding my head up with my right arm propped on the edge of the chair for hours without moving. i would sit so long and so still in that position that my hand would fall more like into a coma than asleep. it sometimes took a good 15 minutes of rubbing to bring it tingling back to life. while the little wiry therapist tried to shock me into saying something by telling me there was probably a part of me that had wanted to be molested. what she didn't understand is that i was beyond shock and whatever fraction of the story she ever got was truly minute. i still have bright eyes though, even when i get overwhelmed now. and i've had at least one truly good counselor since then, in college. even her i sent back to the books though until she finally gave up trying to diagnose me and just help me. she watched wheand learned about me that way. and her perceptions have become and been astute and full of depth. i have gratitude to her for that. i don't think she would still say she understands me. but she's helped me so much. and for that i am grateful.