“I think that ends our session today.” I said and smiled though my spectacles (I wear spectacles in the future) as the patient ascended from the leather couch and made his way across the room before his silhouette made its last appearance through the doorway. It was silent now except for crackling of the flame in the fireplace across the room and the pit-pat of specks of rain against the huge glass window, which stood as a wall to the room itself facing the view of swaying trees. Everything was painted in orange and the flickering of the fire made motions that danced across the wooden floor from corner to corner. The sun setting marked the end of another day at the office. I closed the leather bound book with scribbles of notes and charts and turned the key to the door which echoed with a “KLANK” down the meandering corridors and proceeded to the exit as I made one last glance at my watch, knowing I’ll be here again tomorrow morning.
The sun was rising and the crushing of the gravel against my tires notified me of my destination. With one final sweep, I casually pressed the lock button on my car as I methodically ravened through the mini courtyard through the double mahogany doors, which introduced a quaint yet lovely bricked building of red with foliage ensconced neatly on all sides. The morning air was crisp and peaks of sunlight bounced to and fro from behind the maple trees in the courtyard. I stepped over glades of dewy grass as the brisk air tickled my face as I read to myself the engraved words of “Office of Therapeutic Medicine” which laid across a marble tablet presented next to the double doors of the entrance of the building as I walked in with a cup of hot coffee in one hand.
“Good Morning, Doctor.” Alicia, the girl at the front desk smiled warmly as she handed me my schedule of patients for the day. (I always pictured having an assistant or the girl who sat at the front desk being named Alicia). I returned the smile and proceeded passed corridors of rooms of yoga and meditation as spa music played harmoniously along with now the increasing sunlight that ebbed through all the glass walls in the building.
I never did like the sterile atmosphere of hospitals. When I opened my practice for Psychotherapy, I wanted to use as much earth tones and colors as possible. As for composition, I liked different textures such as wood, anything to make the environment as close as possible to nature, more organic. More human. And so I opened my office and in the light of day post rain, it looks like a grandfather’s study or even your grandma’s living room (if she had a good interior designer, I mean). To the opposite side of the door across the room is a glass window instead of a wall that overlooks the courtyard with a desk perched neatly in front of it. The sun slowly touched everything from the white rug in the center laid on the wooden floors to fireplace on the left wall to the brown leather couches as if waking them up in preparation for the first person to tell their tale. I sat in my leather recliner sipping from my cup as the clock ticked and the steam from the coffee warmed my nostrils. I inhaled the smell of wood and leather as I stared at the bookcase lined with teachings and autobiographies of Freud and Skinner and then the door opens. “Let’s continue our session today...” I said as I put down the cup and put on my spectacles.
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