Casual
Casual Reclaiming Your Inner Journalist I've always been told one can never have too many friends, which perhaps was what drew me to the Learning Annex's Inner Child Workshop. Their ad promised...
...I think taping is wholly inappropriate," clucked an assertiveness trainer who'd joined us from down the hall...
...If Ben had walked into the room attached to a giant nipple, none of us would've been taken aback-not as he lay on the floor in a three-quarters fetal tuck, talking baby talk while constructing origami name tags with his "non-dominant hand" and kicking off his topsiders to rub black nylon socks together like he was expecting a spoonful of Blueberry Buckle...
...My inner snapshot occurred during a rough patch, what I refer to sartorially as my "cut-offs and dingo boots" phase-a tough look to pull off even at four...
...The important thing to remember is to have a good cry," she said...
...You can pick it up on your way out," said Lee, who looked like he'd picked up a few things himself with his blue cords and large feathered flaps of hair covering his ears like he was Andy Travis's stunt double on WKRP in Cincinnati...
...ERASE THE TAPE...
...All were now searching for a custom-made Lincoln Log religion featuring the most beloved deity- Themselves...
...From there we were off, with deep-breathing visualization techniques...
...One of my new foufy-haired friends explained it thus: "You, in a sense, are the Christ...
...Though some of us know it simply as "life," Jolen told us that we all experience "dysfunction...
...This was no revelation...
...Doesn't sound very nurturing to me...
...Matt Labash...
...My father was abusive and I never disconnected from my mother," he said...
...Picture your inner child," said Chang, holding a Cabbage-Patch likeness of herself...
...Now is it you who's uncomfortable," I needled, "or your inner child...
...See a sad movie, like Babe...
...Put it on your lap, stroke its hair, and say, 'Hi, Little Jolen, do you have anything to tell me today?'" The others had more success than I. The assertiveness trainer pictured herself "in a white dress holding a fish I just caught," while Reva said, "I was in a red dress and I looked adorable...
...This isn't a time for journalism, it's a time to share," she said...
...Erase the tape...
...As a participant and not a journalist, I went with the flow- snacking on nuts and raisins while arts'n'craftsing with my playmates, observing inner child/protective parent dialogues, primal screaming into accordion room dividers, and otherwise watching the believers peel each other like Bermuda onions, savoring every narcissistic layer until they regressed to sucklings...
...I'm very uncomfortable with it" said Reva, sitting next to me...
...Our trainer's intention was to connect our inner child with our nurturing parent, also referred to in the literature as a "child's rights advocate"-the Marian Wright Edelman within...
...Any doubt that I'd come to the right place was quashed by facilitator Jolen Chang, who welcomed six grown men and women with the words "Oh, here are the children," as she unloaded her pediatric healing utensils: a tubful of crayons, scissors, Elmers School-Girl Gel, ceramic nurturing sculptures...
...Then, and only then, could the Big Truths come a-calling...
...The Unity Church has served, historically, as a home for lapsed every-things: Jews fleeing orthodoxy, Catholics avoiding ritualism, Baptists who fear excessive potlucking, Episcopalians escaping each other...
...I can pretty much judge everyone by how they react to that...
...This is precisely the kind of dialogue cue that can make a guy turn on his microrecorder, which I did...
...An avid churchgoer in the conventional sense, I'm chronically fascinated by those who worship at the Temple of Self, larding up bestseller lists with M. Scott Peck and Marianne Williamson and Deepak Chopra, looking at the world through Gestalt-colored glasses and slogging through bogs of New Age goo...
...Their ad promised not only to put me in touch with my inner child, but "to heal this child and thus make him/her one's own best friend...
...Our relationship was"-he struggled for words- "too close...
...Obviously some power brought you here, so leave the journalist behind...
...Jolen scolded both me, Matt Labash, and Little Matt, as I was instructed to call my inner self...
...Not all of us had nurturing parents, as we were reminded by hunchbacked Ben, who had the kind of 12-step facial hair that seems to retain comfort-food detritus (chicken soup driblets, Swiss Miss Mocha powder, etc...
...Chang is a Unity lay minister...
...She didn't look amused, extending her hand in the manner of a second-grade teacher confiscating a favorite toy-one that I wouldn't see at the end of the year-as she walked it to the waste-basket, dismembering it with violent ripping motions...
...That's the one with the talking pig...
...It was a big mistake...
Vol. 1 • March 1996 • No. 24
