by Lila Zimmerman, MFT

A DINNER PARTY WITH MY PSYCHOANALYTIC FRIENDS: PARTLY REAL, PARTLY IMAGINED

V has her baby sitting in a floating highchair at the end of the table. The baby is our centerpiece. She’s gripped in, we are gripped to her. She has giant blue eyes and a mouth that grasps at new sounds. 

A gathering of potluck-style efforts has filled the table with make-your-own lettuce wraps plus some off-theme dolmas and a bowl of olives stuffed with garlic. A bottle of wine, cans of Diet Coke, a carafe of tap water. R has made a pistachio milk pudding in a massive terracotta serving dish. I am impressed and cannot take my eyes off it. I was excited to bring a pavlova but hadn’t anticipated an off-season heat wave and my meringue is refusing to stay crisp, humiliating me with its fallen and gummy demeanor. 

“Don’t look at that,” I tell the group. 

V is worried about mothering (her child and her patients) alongside robots and the future. We have been texting in groups and one-on-one. What will happen to our profession? We are mixed on the matter.

M says she’s not worried. I agree.
“People need people.”
“This is just a phase.” 
The skeptics raise brows and shrug. “I don’t know…”

I send my phone around the table to show off my new rescue dog. Everyone coos, “Oh how sweet!!” I joke that the dog will spare me the misery of my dating life. L asks if we heard the NYT interview about how young men are wanting to date older women. We all scream with delighted disgust.

“Oedipus, jfc, I’m sick of this.”
“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy.”
“Only for 200 dollars an hour!”

D has just come back from Mexico City. Now she is the one passing her phone around, pictures of tacos and murals.

“Frida read Freud. One of his books was on display in her home! Have any of you been? I cried just standing in the room she died in.”
“So intimate being in a person’s home like that.”
“Listen to this,” D says as her phone is returned to her. “Diego Rivera said this about Frida: She tore open her chest and heart to reveal the biological truth of her feelings.”

We need a beat to take this one in. M exhales as I do the same. A tiny silence. All our bodies in the chairs. Digesting our meal, digesting this invitation to remember our insides, blood and guts. A robot could never. The baby slaps her hands against the table, squealing. We all laugh and mimic her, encourage her, “Yes!” We beat our fists with her.