A Rhapsody Of Sorts

2- Rose, Thou Art Sick

August 10, 2012.

"I think you just need to find something else to do, Rose."

I saw Dr. Liddle every Friday morning. Each week, sat across from her in a plush armchair, her dark brown stare penetrated my soul and looked through all of the ugly things my conscience tried to keep buried.

She pushed her horn-rimmed glasses down to the tip of her nose and peered at me over the notepad on her desk.

When Gio first brought up the idea of me "going to talk to someone" I'd been hesitant. But the stress of celebrity life, coupled with my frustration with the world in general, had been a lot for me to take in when I was only nineteen years old. It'd taken a month of trying out different doctors before I'd opened the phone book and found Dr. Liddle. Two years later, I was twenty-one and teetering closer to the edge than I ever did at nineteen — and she was still listening to me.

"You mean like...a new album?"

"Yes," she breathed out. "When is the last time you wrote a song? It's been a while, hasn't it?" She paused to pull her glasses off completely, letting them fall to her bosom where they hung from the chain around her neck.

"I can't make myself." I hadn't written anything for months. It was mildly terrifying.

She pressed her palms down on her mahogany desk. Dr. Liddle's hands were beautiful, aged but still woven with the kind of grace that only comes with life experience. They were darker than the brown skin of her face, and I liked to think it was because she enjoyed working under the sun in her garden on lazy summer Sunday afternoons. Her nails were always filed into perfect rectangles and painted a shade of red.

"You're a musician first and foremost, Rose. You'll figure something out."

"But I still don't understand what you want me to do. I'm on hiatus and Victoria Gold is ready to strangle me."

"Don't worry about Victoria Gold." She said her name with disdain. "If you can't get back into writing lyrics, do something else — you could just play the guitar if you want. Or the cello. Or the piano — anything, honestly. Learn the mandolin, if you must." I could already play the mandolin. "I just want you to feel like you're actually worth something again. I'm concerned about you. I have a feeling you're dwelling on Gregory Fox." I flinched. I didn't want to think about him now or ever again. "And you won't even talk to me about Matthew."

I looked away. "It's so frustrating not being able to get past this."

She paused to take a sip of tea. "You need to calm down. Music is an important part of your life, but it's not everything. If you can't force yourself back into it, you could always try something else."

"But what else is there? You want me to start taking pottery classes with my mum?"

She did not smile at the idea. "If you think that'll help you, yes."

I crossed my arms over my chest. "I'm not doing that."

"What do you like to do, then?" she asked, both her eyebrows raised almost all the way to her widow's peak. "You've got too much stuff bottled up inside you just waiting to come bursting out and you need to channel that somewhere."

"I like sex," I offered jokingly, but Dr. Liddle frowned.

"Come on, Rose, we're going in circles here. There's nothing wrong with embracing your sexuality but I don't think the way you're going about it is necessarily healthy. I want you to take up something creative. Something that allows you to express yourself."

I had a quip on my tongue about how creative sex could be, but the concerned look in Dr. Liddle's eyes made me think better of it.

I didn't have any hobbies that fit the bill, aside from reading alone in my flat — but I didn't think Dr. Liddle would like that since it only served to distance me further from reality.