The Session
by Cornelia Mars

[Please note that names have been changed, and dialogue has been translated and shortened for brevity]

I’m walking up the sunny side of a residential street in Montreal. It’s late March, and a cold snap has just ended. The sun is intense, but the temperature of the air is hovering around zero. I stop to drain the last of my latte, licking the dissolved froth heart stuck to the rim. I used to live around here, and now, after four years in the suburbs, I feel like a tourist. I walk towards the old garment district, where the sidewalks are busy with tech professionals and Hasidic mothers with strollers. I’m heading towards the eleven-story cement blocks that used to house sweat shops and now feature artist studios, vegan restaurants, and, somewhere, an alternative medical center where I will have my first hypnotherapy session. 

When I get to the doorway, I realize I’ve been here before, maybe for an art show or to buy something weird like a used lens cap, but I can’t remember. My life before kids is becoming increasingly foggy. The lobby is outfitted with an odd mix of tiles, which feels appropriate because lately, that’s what my brain feels like: a jumble of ill-fitted things I can’t make heads or tails of. Luckily there are signs for the therapist’s office on the walls. I follow the arrows pointing the way through the bowels of the building, where things are darker, and the fluorescent lights don’t quite reach the corners. I see the door at the end of a hallway and step into a bright office. 

After adjusting to the light, I see wall-to-wall windows that give Montreal’s trademark view of the mountain with the cross on top. Someone pops up from behind a door. “Do you have an appointment?”

“Yes, with Claudine,” I say, but her face is blank, “For hypnotherapy?” I add.

“Ah yes, she’ll be right with you.” 

While I wait, I look around the empty waiting room: pamphlets, posters, and nice but scuffed furniture. Next to the waiting area is an empty office with an open door. There’s a blue, unframed painting of some cat animal on the wall. When the front door opens, I swivel around and see a woman rushing down the hallway, coat swaying. “Claudine?” I ask. 

“Oui!” She sounds a bit breathless. “Just a moment,” she says and swooshes into the office with the blue painting. She pulls off her coat mid-stride displaying leopard-print details on the cuffs and hood. She’s wearing glossy emerald-green pants, a tight black bodice, and a scooped neck. Her hair is wound into a tight, high bun, and she has the posture of someone who used to dance ballet. 

“Okay, you can come in,” she says, arranging her things. There’s another blue painting above a leather loveseat with a jungle temple and again, a cat of some kind. I assume the paintings have been done by Claudine and wonder if they are renditions of visions, but I don’t dare ask. 

“How did you hear about me?” She asks. 

“On Instagram,” I say, even though I hate to admit it. Hypnotherapist / Artist. Online and in-person. Like. Follow. Message. I don’t know what compelled me to write her at the moment. Probably equal parts curiosity and desperation. I sit down on the loveseat, and Claudine sits on an office chair opposite me. She’s holding a clipboard and says, “Since this is the first session, there will be some preliminaries.” Then she explains how the hypnotic state is a natural state, one we might enter in and out of several times a day when we daydream or zone out right before we fall asleep. Claudine says she will record our session and email me the audio file afterward. Then she asks me why I am here. 

I have prepared for this question and am already holding a notebook with two bullet point lists: 1. General problems 2. Specific issues. But I can’t bring myself to open the book. Somehow all of my flaws meticulously noted and categorized, seem beside the point, like mismatched tiles in a foyer. The tiles are not the problem; it’s the feeling that you don’t know where you are or where you’re going. I consider telling her that I’ve always been curious about hypnotherapy. Or that I have realized, after trying to write a memoir, that some of my early childhood memories are bracketed by black holes, which I sense contain answers to questions I don’t even dare ask. 

But lately, I have had another, more pressing reason. My spouse of twelve years, the father of my two children, had recently broken up with me. Again. In both instances, we worked it out and made up. Called it pandemic itch. Cabin fever. Sick-and-tired. Tired. It had only been a few days ago since he had said something like, “I can’t do this anymore,” “This isn’t working,” or “I want out.” I honestly can’t remember which phrase he used, only that the kids were watching Peppa Pig upstairs while we sat cross-legged on cushions in the damp basement. The carpeted 1960s basement we owned together and now would probably never get around to renovating. When he said whatever-it-was-he-said, he had looked relieved. Part of me had wanted to tell him to just leave if that’s what he wanted. But I knew I couldn’t because I was wholly dependent on him, against all my better judgment and for all my feminist ideals. In the seven years since becoming a mother, I hadn’t worked, and my prospects, friends, and the few scraggly social skills remaining had withered down to nothing. I could tell you the names of everyone on the Paw Patrol team in English and French, but not how to join a Teams meeting. I knew at least three moms I could message to ask for a spare car seat, but I could never tell them I cried while I did the dishes or that I felt jealous when my husband got raises and promotions while I scrambled for time to volunteer at a help center two hours a week. 

Then there was the problem that I still loved him, and he wasn’t sure if he loved me, was in love with me, could stand me, or wanted me around so much daily. He didn’t even know himself. “I don’t know what I feel,” he’d said. Finally, there was the bitter realization that none of this was really his fault. Whatever had turned me into a frazzled, dependent housewife without prospects or autonomy was my own doing. “You chose to stay at home,” he had said. “We had an arrangement. I have never stood in your way. If you want to work, go ahead.” And it was all true. After an hour of talking that day in the basement, reassuring the kids who kept peeking down the staircase to see what we were doing, we worked out a plan: get counseling, change the routine, get out more, and most importantly, see less of each other. 

“We’re going to counseling soon, try to make it work,” I tell Claudine. After saying that, I almost feel the need to apologize because I am someone who can afford counseling and hypnotherapy. Still, I restrain myself because I know that if my husband does leave, I won’t be covered under his insurance anymore. “I’m grateful,” I say because isn’t that what you’re supposed to say? “My life is generally very good, but I can’t help but feel… Angry? Cheated somehow. Maybe because if he leaves, he will be okay, and I won’t.”

Claudine glances down at my hands, which I’ve balled into fists without noticing. Even with the mask, I recognize that look of concern. I’m rambling. So, I take a breath and try to pinpoint something more concrete. “Well, basically, I’m insecure. And it’s affecting everything in my life.” Claudine tells me that she’ll leave the relationship issues for the couple’s counselor and will focus on diminishing my fears and anxieties. She asks me if I can remember a time when I felt courageous, and I tell her, “When I moved to Canada when I was nineteen. But I was scared then, too.” 

“Mmm, yes, but there is no courage without fear is there?” She says, and I nod. That’s true. Then I feel like I’ve heard that before, and I wish it wasn’t a motivational quote I scrolled past on Instagram, but I’m pretty sure it was. She tells me to grab a pillow and get comfortable, so I lay down on the loveseat folding my legs over the armrest. She starts the audio recorder on her cellphone. 

“Close your eyes.” She lowers the pitch of her voice. “Pay attention to the different sounds around you. The sound of my voice…” She starts speaking with the slow, rise-fall intonation that yoga teachers use at the end of class when you’re in dead man’s pose. “The sounds all around… Maybe the sounds far away, or the ones close by…” At this moment, however, the sounds outside the office increased. Doors open and slam shut loudly, people are chatting and walking around, and I’m finding it hard to focus. I wonder if choosing the lunch hour slot was a mistake, but if I had chosen a later one, I wouldn’t have been able to pick up my kid at school, and I would have left dinner duty for my husband. Then I would feel guilty which is partly why I’m here in the first place. It’s only when Claudine tells me to notice the different temperatures of my body that I start to relax. 

“Pay attention to gravity, the magnetic pull of the earth… And once you have allowed yourself to feel grounded, I will count from ten to zero. I invite you to become aware of the earth’s gravity. The different layers of the earth. Imagine the very center of the earth, let yourself be inspired, and get in touch with that hot core of the earth. This heat is like a fire, and fire is what gives sparks, flames, courage, motivation, action, confidence, and strength… And with each number, you can settle in deeper and deeper until you are at the heart of the earth. Ten – pay attention to your body and the different layers under you. Nine – imagine the surface of the earth and a tunnel opening up underneath you. Eight – observe the different layers, materials, and colors of the strata. Seven – as you go deeper, observe these differences and become conscious of the pull of earth’s gravity as you approach. Six. Five – even deeper until you get to the heart of the earth. Four – even deeper, as you get closer and closer to this heat source. Three – deeper still. Two – you feel the heat increase. One – a bit further. Zero – you are aware of this heat that warms your body. This heat is pure power. It can burn up your fears, your anxieties, the negativity, watch them disappear, evaporate, go up in smoke…” 

*

The earth’s center is red and black and ringed with yellow; moving, undulating, with no up and no down, no right or left. It is gravity itself. No direction, just movement. A molten, pulsating core. A figure appears out of the heat in red robes, layered and folded around her arms and chest. She is wearing a veil, but her hair fans out from under it in disarray. Her eyes are ablaze, and her arms are lowered, hands clasped at the lower curve of her abdomen. As she approaches, I see she is cradling something in her hands. Something on fire. She raises her arms slightly, smiling, bringing it into light, not as an offering but for me to see. It is a burning heart. Not a glowing heart shape, but a purplish, bloody human heart, tinged with ash and dancing flames.

*

“Soon I will count to ten to invite you to come back. One, you can start with small movements. Two – take a few deep breaths to bring back some energy into your body. Three – you can start opening your eyes. Four… Five… Six… Seven… Eight, nine, ten.”

I am awake. I have been aware the whole time, but I’m not sure how much time has passed since we started. “How do you feel?” She asks. 

“Dizzy,” I say, wiggling my toes. I realize I know exactly what she said and yet I have a hard time remembering my own thoughts, only images remain. “I saw something…”

“What did you see?” Claudine nods. She is not surprised. 

“Well, I think it was the Madonna, Mary, holding a burning heart.” I am almost embarrassed that it’s not something more epic, like a spirit animal or a dead relative. 

“What does that mean to you?” She asks. 

“Well, I’m not catholic or even religious, but I guess it’s a woman, a mother. Both my mother’s and my middle name is Mary. Then there’s fire which I guess means courage. There’s an expression in English: Have heart?” 

“Ouais, comme avoir la foi,” Claudine says. 

“Yes, exactly!” I say, believing she has said ‘to have liver’ – foie – and not ‘to have faith’, which is what she really is saying. For some reason, liver makes perfect sense. 

“Mmm, maybe this could be an image to focus on during meditations,” Claudine says and then gives me detailed instructions on how to put myself into a meditative state. She suggests I do this for ten minutes or so every day using the same steps. We decide to meet up again in a month or so and then she smooths her glossy, emerald-green pants in a way that tells me the session is over. “Okay, au plaisir,” I say and stand up. Until next time. 

When I get out into the blinding sun of the early winter afternoon, the streets are calmer. Lunchtime is over. I feel lighter like something’s been wiped clean. As I walk to the subway, I observe everything as if I have never seen it before. Then I start thinking about the Madonna and the expression ‘to have heart’ as opposed to having liver, and I realize maybe that’s the secret to everything. You need something to stomach life. Guts. 

When my bus back to the suburbs gets on the highway, I end up on the sunny side again. The heat is intense, but I can’t move because there’s a burly, drunk guy on my right, bobbing in and out of consciousness. I can smell the beer on his breath. I lean away towards the window and imagine the sun burning away my fears, giving me courage. I wonder if my husband and I will make it, and if we don’t, how I can make sure our kids will be okay. I wonder how long I can keep going like this, walking a tightrope with an open heart. But I realize that the alternative, to close myself off, is almost unthinkable. Somewhere before the bus crosses the bridge from the city to the north shore, the drunk guy falls asleep on my shoulder. For a brief moment, I feel like we’re all in this together and none of us really know what the hell is going on. We’re just hurdling down the highway, half-conscious most of the time. And maybe that’s okay, as long as we have some love left, as long as we keep trying.

Cornelia Mars is a Swedish-Canadian writer and editor who lives outside of Montreal, Quebec.