Do You Think This Is Strange? Read Online Free PDF

but I liked the resonance in my head.
    â€œThings happen for a reason,” I heard the minister tell my mother.
    â€œNo, they don’t,” she replied. “No one’s told me what the reason is, and I don’t care about the reason.” She lowered her voice to a sharp whisper. “I just want my son back from wherever he goes in his head. I want him present. Not some of the time. All of the time.”
    The minister put his hand over hers. “This is the spot where God comes in,” he said. “In the void between what the world is, and what you want the world to be. You can draw meaning from it, or draw nothing from it.” He flickered a kind smile. “I always think it’s better to draw meaning.”
    I ran my hand over the wooden seats, the dips and bumps, moulded from years of butts sitting, butts standing. People standing to say hallelujah because maybe God did something good. People sitting to say amen because maybe God will do something good.
    Things happen for a reason , the congregation murmurs. But that’s not right. Things just happen. The reason is assigned to the happening, and only after the happening. And like pigeons in an experiment, the congregation flaps its wings and looks for pellets to fall from the sky.
    This memory doesn’t make me happy. But I haven’t filed it away like so many others. I return to it again and again. Despite it not being a happy thing, it remains a Favourite Thing.
    Not all Favourite Things have to be good things.
    â€”
    It was my last and only time at church, the last time my mother tried to force me into a freshly ironed shirt on a Sunday morning. I think she sat, said amen, and God didn’t do something good. I think she resented Him for it. I don’t think she bought into any of it. Even if things happen for a reason, who says you have to like it? And you certainly don’t have to give thanks.
    I don’t spend a lot of time trying to find the reason in things. Perhaps my life would be different if I flapped my wings periodically and expected pellets to fall. I’m not a pigeon. I’m a deer.
    But if I were a pigeon, I might say that there was a reason I was expelled from Templeton College. I might say that I left Templeton for a reason.
    Saskia.
    It was time for us to meet again. My new Favourite Thing. My old Favourite Thing.

THINKING OF EXCALIBUR HOUSE
    There was only one thing that wasn’t boring about group therapy: Saskia Stiles. Ten years ago, we were in the same social group. We spent hours playing cards and Taking Turns. Twice daily, we practised entering the room. We greeted each other with a How Do You Do and How Are You?
    This is what I learned: when entering a room, you are expected to say something from a list of sentences:
    Hello, everyone, my name is Freddy. (If you know the people in the room, you do not have to give your name.)
    Isn’t it a lovely day? (I don’t like this one; often it isn’t a definitively lovely or non-lovely day.)
    Did you have a good day? (This should never be used in the morning.)
    How are you? (How are you what ? I always wondered.)
    Where the hell is my coffee? (This was not on the list of expected sentences at Excalibur House, but when my father discovered the list in my backpack and looked over the speech balloons filled with questions asked by smiling, waving stick figures, he added this question to the end. When I used it at Excalibur House, they called it unexpected behaviour and made me sit for seven minutes in the Room with the Bathtub Full of Plastic Balls.)
    I was good at remembering the scripts we repeated each day, better than most of the people in my group. Saskia had no trouble remembering responses but struggled with remembering which one to use appropriately.
    Nevertheless, she loved the game. It was exciting. She received immediate feedback for a job well done. She got to repeat the scripts again and again. If she did especially well,