I wonder if I should allow myself out with a stain on my shirt.

Photo from Fabulous Mommy

A few years ago, one of my dear friends -- call her Faith -- had a one-time assessment consult with a psychiatrist. My friend, who is a mother and grandmother, wore a blouse that had a stain on it to the interview.

She later received a copy of the report on her perceived human condition, and the stain on her shirt was remarked on -- as a sign of mental illness. Of degraded capacity, care and concern. "Whatever!" she told me, ironic --

One would think the equation is simple:

One mother/grandmother + one stained shirt = DUH!

There are so many ways the shirt could get stained: Maybe Faith's daughter and infant grandchild are out in the waiting room during the consult, and the wee one spat up on Nana's shirt before the inner door opened. Maybe it's an old coffee stain, embedded. Or ketchup, grape juice or ink. Maybe the shirt is her daughter's; maybe it's mine! Maybe Faith spilled coffee on it in the car on the way to the appointment (she does love her coffee!) ... maybe it's a shirt she feels safe and embraced in ... or it was the first thing she pulled out of the closet today. Who knows!

I used to work as a therapist. My teachers modeled respectful curiosity in their work; their questions invited response in the people they were in dialogue with. (They also taught that dialogue means, in one sense, a shared search for meaning.) When they asked a question, it was crafted with care; pointed yet gentle in reach. Three of them, especially, asked their questions in a state of wonder, both as clinicians and persons.

What a joy to receive a beautiful, baffling question! One that cuts to the quick of things, but without doing harm. One that often arrives toned with merciful humour. A curious question, asked with respect, slid subtly into the space between us ...

Asking the right question can halt assumption in its tracks ... and hearing a response as one thread in a story, rather than as something wrong with a person, changes the entire atmosphere of a dialogue.

I can tell you, I'd be all over that stain on the shirt in a one-time consult -- in silence, in a page of my mind, the question awaiting a moment emergent for the asking. I probably wouldn't ask the question as a question; it'd pop out, perhaps, if Faith mentions a grandchild. "A baby?" I might say ... and sometime in there, it might seem right to chuckle softly and wonder out loud about the stain on her shirt, noting its colour -- if it's purple and I've learned that the child is old enough to drink grape juice, I might simply ask, "Grape juice?"

A whole story could live in that stain, and I have no idea what the story is until Faith or I draw our focus to it, and Faith tells me whatever she chooses to tell me.

Just the word "stain" is loaded -- as many words are. Meaning, metaphor, myth. Cascading layers of theme and variations -- all from a stain on a shirt.

Story or symptom? -- Maybe it's both, and then something else.

... As it was, Faith and I howled with laughter at the assumption. "I've got a stain on my shirt! I'm fucked!" she roared. We laughed ourselves stupid, Faith and her friend.