How to Scream
Aging is enraging
Andrea the therapist told me to scream.
I laughed.
“I’m serious,” she said.
“You mean like go into the woods and scream?”
“Or just do it in the house. Tell Steven you’re going to scream and let loose.”
Yeah, no, that’s not happening. There are so many very good reasons for this not to happen, the first being that my retired husband is always home and would be entirely too gleeful and engaged for it to ever be therapy. I can see him bouncing on his toes and joining in, repressed theatre kid that he is.
“Do it in the car then.”
I tried. Again and again, I tried to scream in the car and here’s what I learned:
I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO SCREAM.
I make an “eek a mouse” sound, if there’s a mouse. Snakes inspire a comic, little girl scream, followed immediately by manic laughter. Andrea wants a real, from-the-gut scream, a roar, a bellow, a sound to purge the rage. Expel the demons. It sounds so seductive, so healing. The last time my body made such a noise was during childbirth. An involuntary, primitive roar from the deep hollows of my core. A sound that I almost couldn’t identify as me — “who is making that sound?”
