Visualize This
By Lynda Schor


I am reading a book called Healing Visualizations, to help me end a relationship. The book tells me to: 

Close your eyes. Breathe in and out three times, and see yourself walking along a beach holding hands with the one with whom you are ending the relationship. The two of you are cavorting along the beach. Then you drop hands, say good-bye, and retrace your steps backwards, thoroughly erasing everything that you see before you. Finally you reach the shoreline. The waves wash away all the residue of the relationship. You then swim to the horizon using a regular crawl stroke, seeing your arms, legs and torso elongating. Meet the horizon and come back to shore using a backstroke, your arms stretched far above your head, your legs stretched far in front of you, kicking. When you reach the shore, come out and let the sun dry you. Put on a clean robe and return to your home. Then open your eyes

. . . and find yourself surrounded by your dusty floor that was sanded not by the person you are trying to break from, but by your former husband, who did a lousy job, leaving cracks and splinters, and applying a polyurethane that never completely dried. You are wearing one of his old, huge t-shirts-the one with the photo of Kafka on it, who, with his pointy ears and intense eyes, looks like a bat. You can recall the last time you were at a beach, but can't recall the last time you cavorted. Steve, the person you are visualizing ridding yourself of, is not someone who cavorts either. However, you can both swim. Even though it's only six a.m. you can hear your four-year-old, Ivan, beginning to pant in the next room. That means he's getting hungry. But you are sick to death of your routine, which is Ivan's lifeline. How on earth did you acquire a child who likes each moment of each day to be exactly the same? Who will only eat certain foods (the same ones), prepared the same way, at the same times? Instead of g
etting up to prepare Ivan's toast and peanut butter, you lie there, the slightly curved end of your spine pressing into the floorboards, the small of your back much higher off the floor than it should be, and you recall the last time you heard from Steve, which was three weeks ago. He takes you to the beach in his two-tone brown Chevy that has cardboard in the back right window. Your son Ivan is with his father (he goes with his father, not regularly, but just when his dad has a whim) but Steve's six-year-old, Nicholas, sits in the back seat of the car, not wearing his seatbelt. He's tall for his age, but, unlike his father, fine-boned. In fact, he looks nothing like Steve, who is tall and burly, dark-skinned, with dark hair and a long, equine face. Steve looks, in fact like your father. Every time Steve looks at Nicholas, with his small round face, buttercup blonde hair and small blue eyes, he recalls Nicholas' mother, Eva, who hates Steve, and, according to Steve, has good reason, which is probably what you 
like about him. Still, according to Steve, Eva can be quite a bitch.

Steve doesn't say much, but you're used to his silence and feel quite comfortable. Your father didn't talk much either, though you weren't comfortable with him-you always felt there was something you should say to keep him entertained. But with Steve it doesn't matter if you say anything-you keep him entertained in bed. Your father was (I'll give him credit for that) immune to your teenage attempts at seduction, preferring, incomprehensibly, your mother.

Steve is in a bad mood. He seems angry at Nicholas, but he really might be angry at Eva. 

He doesn't seem angry with you, and while driving skillfully with one hand, with the other he holds your hand, which rests on your wraparound skirt. Trying not to get involved with Steve's relationship with Nicholas, you say nothing, even though Steve's behaving immaturely, and Nicholas' face is red and swollen, as if he were crying, which he's not, though, seated in back, he's clearly miserable.

On the beach you unwrap your skirt, and you're in your one-piece black bathing suit. You rub sunscreen on your white, freckled arms and shoulders and thighs, and on Nicholas's white body. You've been to the beach a few times together, and Steve is the only one who develops a tan. The sunscreen smells sweet, like peaches and coconut, and reminds you of your childhood at Coney Island. Somehow sand has already gotten into the sunscreen and you can feel yourself rubbing it into your skin. You'd like to remain in a reclining position on the hideous Tomas The Tank Engine towel (Ivan's) you've brought because your body looks best that way, reclining; however you feel you should help Nicholas and Steve build a giant sand castle. As soon as you begin to help, letting wet sand run down through your fist to create parapets, Steve says, "I think I'll take a swim." You suspect that maybe he's been taking you to the beach because he can't cope with being alone with Nicholas, and you help him take care of the kid. You watch 
Steve gracefully enter the surf, his body still trim from the carpentry, the physical labor he's doing.

Your legs are asleep, and you, full of sand, are bored. Steve shakes his wet hair over you, and you gasp at the coldness of the drops. He laughs the laugh you recall from years ago, when you were both kids in college. He looks at you with his head tilted, as he always does, because he has a problem with his eyes-his eyeballs seem to tremble. But his look is intense, loving. You feel like a family here-Steve, you, Nicholas. You forget that you have a hideous ex out there, and a kid of your own who's seeing a therapist, and that Steve is only here in New York because he's on probation for doing something like selling drugs, or hitting Eva, and that Nicholas also sees a therapist. "My jail psychologist told me I tested sociopathic," Steve says. He sits on your towel and begins to eat the chicken sandwiches with honey mustard you've made. "Eva is marrying a lawyer in Denver-an ugly toad," he says. "Is that what's bothering you?" you ask. "Nothing's bothering me," he says, chewing. Drops from his hair drip into th
e sand, creating little sand balls. "She's doing it for money and security," he says. You say nothing, happy to be taken into his confidence. This is Steve, opening up. "Are you jealous?" you ask. "No," Steve laughs. "I hate her so much." You say, "Your hatred is ruining your life. Maybe you should try these visualization exercises to get rid of your hatred." You are doing visualization exercises, at that time, not to stop thinking about or seeing Steve, but to get money. Those exercises are not exactly visualization-they're supposed to be self-hypnosis, and the man who speaks extremely slowly on the tape tells you to imagine yourself in the sun, on a beach letting old hatreds, negative attachments, and envy leak out of you, while sunshine and golden relaxation begin to fill the void. "You deserve wealth," the man on the tape tells you. You are beginning to feel that you do deserve wealth. "I hate Eva so much that if she were here I'd drown her," says Steve.

Meanwhile, you feel yourself beginning to envy Eva. She has Steve so much in love with her that he hates her. He thinks about her endlessly. He takes care of his son so she can go to law school. You find yourself wishing that Steve hated you as much as he hates Eva.