Too much of a good thing - update

While I think it is important to exercise moderation in many things and to always leave yourself something new and exciting for next time, I have realized that constantly finding something new and exciting in people is inevitable.  It is impossible to learn everything about someone.  I have also realized that while it may be possible to have too much all at once, I am a long way from even having enough, let alone too much. 

Is it possible to miss someone only 5 minutes after you’ve said goodbye?  
Answer:  Yes, it is.  

My friend, Pete.

So, I know it’s kind of random, but I have been thinking about my friend Pete for a while.  Well, in truth, I have been thinking about how things turn out differently than what you planned or expected.  This reminded me of my friend, Pete. 

Pete was a pretty simple guy.  Pete liked to fish and he and his brother eventually made a business out of it.  They did alright at times and struggled at other times.  Pete got married and was happy for a time, but his wife died… I have forgotten the details.  But Pete relied on his brother and they got through things.  Pete wasn’t the brainiest of the bunch, but he had a decent head for what was right and what was fair.  He was a good man, a good brother (most of the time) and a good friend.

Things changed for Pete when he met Josh.  Actually, it was Josh that gave Pete his name.  See, Pete’s first name was Simon, but Josh liked the name Pete better and it just stuck. That’s a funny story that I may have to tell another time.  Pete, I’m sure, had a plan about his life; where he was headed, things he would do, etc.  Josh, however, was kind of a “pot stirrer.”  I guess Josh liked something in Pete and decided to take him under his wing, as it were.  They instantly became best friends.  Josh was an educated man.  Pete was not.  Josh tried to teach Pete about a number of things – important things- but Pete just didn’t “get” it most of the time.  Pete was the kid with so much potential; he just hadn’t realized it yet.

This one time, Josh was trying to teach Pete and some of his buddies about service.  Josh took each guy in turn and washed his feet, oiled them, massaged them, basically gave them the equivalent of a pedicure…  Now, Pete thought that this was inappropriate for his friend, teacher, and mentor to be rubbing down his feet, so he refused when it was his turn.  Josh told Pete that if he didn’t allow him to do this that Pete wouldn’t be able to hang out with him anymore.  Well, at the thought of losing his friend and teacher, Pete suddenly became really enthusiastic and said he wanted to have his hands and head washed, oiled, massaged, etc.  Pete missed the point of the lesson.  There was much deeper significance there, but Pete didn’t understand.

There was another time when Josh and Pete and their friends got in trouble with the law.  Now, Pete may have been a little naïve, but he was loyal.  He came to Josh’s defense and got right in the faces of the cops that were trying to arrest them.  He even grabbed a knife and took a swing at a couple of the cops, catching one guy on the side of the head and slicing half the guys ear off.  Josh, however, was more patient and calmed Pete and even went so far as to do first aid on the cop, fixing his ear.  Again, Pete was a good man, he just didn’t “get” it and Josh had to show him by example.  Pete didn’t understand the example until later.

What was probably the worst, though was when Josh had been arrested and taken to the police station by the cops, most of his buddies took off.  They were afraid of getting in trouble with the cops, too.  Pete was different.  Remember how I said he was loyal and a little Naïve?  Well, he followed the cops along with some of the crowd that was there when Josh was arrested.  Trouble is that some of the crowd recognized Pete’s face or accent and called him out on it.  Pete didn’t stand up for Josh.  Instead, he said that he had never met and did not know Josh.  This happened several times.  The last time, Pete could see Josh from where he was and just after he had gotten done telling some woman that he didn’t know the criminal, had never met him, didn’t know what she was talking about, the clock rang.  Pete looked up at the clock and looked back to where his best friend Josh was and saw that Josh was looking right at him.  The look on Josh’s face was curious… knowing, but sad.  He had turned his back on his friend.  It hit Pete pretty hard.  Really hard, in fact.  Pete left the police station, running.  He ran and ran for a while until his breath caught and he had to stop in a back alley and breathe for a moment.  He broke down and wept even more bitterly than when his wife had died. 

Now, Josh (short for Jeshuah) was in a lot of trouble and was sentenced to die by the cops and courts.  There was nothing Pete could do but watch.  You can imagine that it was devastating for him.  It was like losing his brother, best friend, father, mentor, personal hero and his dog all at the same time.  Can you imagine?  And it got even worse for him.  He couldn’t even grieve for Josh.  After only a few days a couple of girls that he would hang out with came and said that someone had hijacked Josh’s body from the cemetery!  Now, Simon/Peter was not one to simply take someone’s word for anything so, you better believe he went tearing down to the cemetery plot and when he got there all he found was the cloths that Josh had been buried in.  The body was gone.

Now, you may think you know this story.  There are a lot of people that know about my friend Pete and even more that know or have at least heard of my other friend Josh.  What you may not remember is that Josh came to Pete.  Keep in mind that this is after Pete had watched Josh die.  So, you can imagine that Pete was a little freaked out!  Funny thing is that Josh had told Pete that all this was going to happen.  But again, Pete didn’t get it. 

When Pete finally DID get it… wow! 

He became almost as great a teacher, mentor, friend, brother as his friend Josh had been to him.  He realized the potential that he never knew he had.  Think about all the things that Pete did.  What he became… from a simple fisherman. 

I guess what I have been thinking about is how funny life is.  “Men plan and God laughs.”  How many times do our plans change suddenly and dramatically because of what life throws at us?  Before he died, Pete was able to say, “I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.  I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course.  I have kept the faith.” 

Will I be able to say the same?

Too much of a good thing?

One would reason that if a little bit of something is good then a great deal of that same something would be better, right?  For example, one bite of triple fudge dark chocolate ripple cake is incredible which stands to reason that having the whole cake would be cosmically orgasmic, right?  The ancient societies certainly believed it.  They would go to banquets for days and gorge themselves on these elaborate feasts, get drunk, get laid then go out, evacuate their stomachs and go back again for another round.  Sounds great, right? …right?  I… uh… kind of feel sick thinking about it.

Okay, seriously, what happens in reality?  You take one bite of your triple fudge dark chocolate ripple cake and its divine, second bite, great.  Third bite starts to get too rich.  By the fourth bite, it’s too much and you end up sliding your decadent desert over to your friend to finish for you.  

I remember going to Disneyland as a kid and Six Flags Magic Mountain as a teen with my family.  My mother would always tell us to leave something to do the next time we came and that way we would always want to come back; we would always be exploring and discovering new things.  The things that we had seen and done would be fun, familiar and we would be excited to see and experience them again, but there would always be something new and exciting to see the next time. 

Is it possible to have so much of a good thing that you sate the appetite for it completely and never again have a desire to enjoy it?  I have a number of friends who will testify to this fact on Monday mornings when they arrive at work proclaiming their desire to “never drink again.”  Can we actually “kill” the desire for something by having too much of it?

In the masterful words of Shakespeare, Duke Orsino captures this idea in a very well-known passage.  He is talking about a piece of music he heard that reminded him of the object of his heart’s desire: Viola. 

“If music be the food of love, play on!  Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, the appetite may sicken, and so die.”  Then calling to his musicians, “That strain again!”  They begin to play this bit of music for him and again he feels the passion and the power of the music.  Then he sighs and says, “It had a dying fall:  O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound that breathes upon a bank of violets, stealing and giving odor!”  He inhales suddenly as though trying to capture the scent of the music in his nose.  I imagine him not being satisfied with his first breath and trying again, he sniffs the air deeply… Then with a sigh of resignation says, “Enough; no more.  'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.”

Can this happen with people? 

Is it possible that my seemingly unsatisfieable want to be around and near certain people will eventually kill their desire to be near me?  Will it kill my desire to be near them?  Or am I worrying unnecessarily, again?  Am I borrowing trouble again, as it were?  Maybe.

… in fact, probably.

I have not been one known for setting or, once set, abiding by limits.  I tend to be the one who cries, “Give me excess of it!”  I can never have enough of a good thing.  Then again, Orsino was warring with himself because all of his advances toward Viola were being rejected.  Was he, in fact, trying to kill his desire for Viola? 

They say “absence makes the heart grow fonder.”  Does this translate to, “Go away, already!  Give me the chance to miss you!”  Perhaps…  Or, rather, is it that absence makes the heart grow forgetful and, if so, is that a good or a bad thing?  I don’t mean forgetful in the sense of forgetting to remember someone, but rather forgetting the things that made you want the chance to miss them in the first place. 

See, if you think back about people you’re fond of you remember the good things about them, the fun that was had and the times that you enjoyed.  You don’t tend to dwell on the minor annoyances you would feel about them.  Right?  Time, memory and longing can take those fine bits of irritation and coat them in layer upon layer of sweet memories and eventually turn that little grain of irritation into a priceless pearl that you would never trade.  So, the minor irritations in people, their imperfections, can eventually be the things that you come to love the most… given time, absence and longing for their return.  In fact, this can be applied almost universally.  It is true of friends, lovers, family members, places, etc. 

Now, the reader will surely be wondering if this is what I am thinking or if this is what I think others are thinking about me…  The truth is, both, but FAR more the later.  I think I am just getting scared.  Things are wonderful right now and I seem to be waiting for the other shoe to drop.  I have got to stop doing that!  

What do you think?  

Random thoughts at 2:30 am

So, it is 2:30 in the morning and all is quiet.  It’s an atmosphere that lends itself rather well to quiet reflection.  So, what am I reflecting on?  Gratitude.

I am grateful for so many things that I often gloss over them simply because it seems too big to think about.  I am grateful for many things including my family, friends, faith and freedom (and for alliteration, apparently). The funny thing about gratitude is that once you start thinking about things you are grateful for it kind of spirals outward and really begins to change your perception.  It’s possible to experience an attitude of gratitude that pervades even your very cognition.  It’s possible to even be grateful for the idiot who cut you off on the freeway and flipped you the bird.  I haven’t worked out how to be grateful for THAT one just yet… but I’m a work in progress. 

So, while I definitely feel grateful for the “big things” in life, I feel like they have been talked about already by a lot of people and, frankly, some of what I feel for those big things is too personal for a blog.  Instead, I wanted to acknowledge some of the little things that I am grateful for that often go overlooked, but that I have thought of as a result of exploring gratitude.  –That and the fact that I can’t seem to get back to sleep. 

Twist ties.  I am thankful for those ridiculous little bits of metal wire wrapped in paper that you have to twist off the bread bag.  They make things SO much easier.  Think about it.  How annoying would it be without those?  Eh? Eh?  And we use them for everything! 

Lawn Mowers.  I may be strange, but I actually like mowing the lawn.  I like the way it looks and there is something therapeutic about walking the grass back and forth.  But more importantly, I love the smell of fresh cut grass.  Admit it!  You have been driving past a ball park on that first perfect spring day with the windows down and you catch the whiff of the newly mowed field and think, “Ah, spring.  Finally!” 

Goosebumps.  I know it seems strange, but how else are you going to recognize that 6^th sense when something isn’t right?  It makes watching scary movies SO much more fun.  Plus, and more importantly, they are what tell you that you’re feeling something magical when someone special is close enough to touch… I’m just sayin’

Air.  Okay, this might fall under the section of “Big things” but I am a fan of air.  And there are even different kinds of air like the air after a rain storm or the windy air on a mountain peak.  Plus, I am such a fan of breathing!  Seriously, have you ever tried NOT breathing for a while?  It sucks!  Also, air returns you back to so many of those big things like music, talking, singing, hearing, weather, sense of smell, possibility of life in general.

I think that for the next little while I am going to try to observe things that I am grateful for.  I’m going to try to pay special attention to the little things.  Not to diminish the importance of the big things, but rather to cultivate that gratitude oriented point of view.  Try it!  It’s amazing what you find to be thankful for. 

Funny how things turn out, Part II

 You may have seen from earlier posts that I met someone.  I felt like this was a big deal because it is the first time that I have felt like I could care deeply for someone since my divorce.  I have tried dating a bit here and there and even made a run at a couple of relationships.  Unfortunately, if I am being totally honest with myself, I knew at the outset that these relationships were doomed to fail for two reasons.  First, I had not really taken time to grieve for my marriage, and second, I didn't really care all that much about the girls I was dating.  I know that it sounds terrible to say it that way, but it's true.  I cared more for the pain that I was carrying than I did for the girl I was dating.  I swore off dating for a while and took the time I needed to grieve for my terminated marriage.  It's funny in hind sight because I can actually see the different "stages of grief" that everyone talks about.  It really sucked for a long time.  But I overcame it and made peace with my past.

  Then I met her.  She took me by surprise.  I mean, I had sworn off dating, right?  Besides, I thought, she would never be interested in me.  But the idea stuck in my head that she was important for some reason.  Again, I thought about where this was going and knew that I was in the same position as when I was a kid, not being able to see the end from the beginning.  I decided not to tangle with it and for a long time, I just left it alone.  Tried to stay aloof but still congenial... Yeah, that didn't work out so well.

  Have you ever heard the expression, "Men plan and God laughs?"  When I tried again and again to ignore her and my attraction to her, I could almost hear the laughter.  It's actually kind of amusingly annoying now that I think about it.  My nature in general prohibited me from being standoffish and circumstances in general forbade me from avoiding her... not that I really wanted to avoid her...  But, you see, I had made myself comfortable with being alone.  I forced myself to be okay with never having someone in my life again... and yet...  I couldn’t help…  <grumble.>  Do you see why it was frustrating?  I was okay with the way things were.  I was fine with the way I had decided to be...  Then I realized that I didn't want to be "okay" or "fine," I wanted to be happy again.  I began to entertain ideas of hope whereas before I had dismissed them.  I began to become invested in other people again. I simply began again.

  Just when I thought things were going well, meaning we had connected and decided that there was something worth exploring between us, the whole thing came crashing down.  "No chemistry" she had said and this was the phrase that stuck in my head.  It was doubly potent for me because I had said the exact same thing to one of the girls I had tried to date after my divorce.  And, naturally, this came right at the fragile time when I was just beginning to hope again and believe again.  Starting to plan again...

  You see, I used to be a planner.  I used to like to imagine next month, next summer, 5 years, 10 years, 45 years down the road.  I had stopped planning the moment I had truly realized that "Plan A" was shot to hell.  And yet, I had started to plan again.  I had begun to evaluate my life, what I wanted and where I wanted to go.  Now, in fairness, I had started this change before I met her, but she certainly inspired me to continue and accelerated the process.  And now, the things I had begun to hope for seemed to be dissolving right in front of me.  I felt chemistry.  I wanted to learn more -- to be more...  Perhaps it was another lesson in being unable to control the outcome of something and still being willing to try at it.  Hmmm... perhaps.

  I was faced with a choice again.  Would I continue to hope and believe or would I revert back to the "safe" way of looking at the world, that is to say, only looking at the next 24 hours?  I decided that, while she had certainly inspired me to hope, she was not the reason I was hoping again.  I decided to take it for what it was and be grateful for having met her and for the influence she had on me and a critical time...

  ...but that's not the end of the story.

  Some short time later she asked me if we could still be friends.  I had to think about it for a while before responding.  Could I be friends with someone that I felt this way about?  Could I take a step back and be supportive and caring without the hope of romance or a future?  Could I watch her find happiness with someone else if it came to that?  Well, the answer is no.  But!  I knew that I was happier with her in my life than I would be without her.  Besides, I had been and still was a great friend to some of my ex-girlfriends from high school and college.  I could do it... (I kept telling myself) 

  We made plans to spend some time together.  I figured it would be just friends hanging out together...  Well, we went to see Country Strong together.  I don’t remember if others were supposed to come with us or not, but it ended up being just us two.  I was being good natured and friendly.  I mean, I had told her that it would be different from how it was if we were just going to be friends… Again, you could almost hear the laughter... Then the movie started…  Now, she and I have a history with the music from this movie which makes me wonder if she planned this beforehand or not, but regardless we watched.  It was agonizing for the first little while.  Sitting there next to her, smiling, talking but not touching her.  Then, all of a sudden, she put her head on my shoulder… Without even thinking, I rested my cheek on her head.  We half-snuggled for the rest of the movie.  It was a sad, happy, tragic, but redeeming movie.  I highly recommend it, by the way, but the punch line of the film was, “Don’t be afraid to fall in love.  It’s the only thing that matters in life, the ONLY thing.  Do you understand what I’m telling you?”   

  Funny, but just when I think I have to make myself okay with just being friends with this wonderful and amazing person... It seems, I may not have to after all...  There is something there, something important.  I have decided not to "borrow trouble" by doubting or by reading too much in, but there is definitely something.  We spent a wonderful evening together and I seriously hope that more are forthcoming.  

It's funny how things work out.

  Sometimes, when you're stuck in the thick of things, it's difficult to imagine the end from the beginning.  You know those moments when times are tough and you find yourself asking why?  You'd think that I would know this by now but often times when I ask the unanswerable "Why?" question I find that the answer inevitably is, "You'll see."

  When I was a kid, I was offered the chance to participate in the Seminar program through the San Diego Unified School district.  This was an incredible program that accelerated the curriculum of the 5th and 6th grades and made for a very impressive platform from which to launch my education.  When I was told about the program I was told that I would have the decision about participating because it meant leaving my current school and commuting 45 minutes each day to Erickson Elementary.  This was a school across town in the perceived "poor part of town."  There were other challenges to be has as well.  For example, I would never be accepted as mainstream.  I would always be a nerd and part of the "smart crowd."  Still, when I considered my options and looked for inspiration, I felt strongly that I should go for it.

  There were times when it was hard and frustrating and I thought about transferring back to my home school where all my friends were.  In fact, 6th grade was even harder.  I ended up being the ONLY 6th grade boy in my class.  Fortunately, I was in a 5-6th combination class, but having to attend class with a bunch of kids who were both smart and incredibly immature, ...my neck still tenses up at how frustrating it was.  At the end of my 6th year, I again had to make a tough decision.  Would I continue with the Seminar program for another two years in middle school or return to my local Junior High school where all the neighborhood kids went?  One would mean again commuting across town to attend school in a very challenging program and the other would mean being reconnected with my childhood friends who had probably all but forgotten me.  I felt strongly that I should return to my local school again.

  There was a strange time when I wondered why I had wasted two years of precious time going to another school that didn't seem to benefit me in any way.  I had met some interesting people, sure... but what did it matter?!  It didn't make sense until I got to high school.  See a brand new high school had been built for the kids in my town.  Most of the kids who had gone to the seminar program at Challenger middle school across town also filtered into the new Scripps Ranch High School.  It was like the friends from childhood and all the friends I had made in the Seminar program were now sandwiched together in one school.  This may not mean much to the casual reader, but to a shy kid struggling with who he is and wants to be it was pretty huge.  Plus, I was part of both worlds.  I was mainstream with all the kids I knew, but was also accepted as a "smart kid" by all the Seminar students.  ...anyway, long way of saying that it's sometimes difficult to see how things will turn out.

  More to follow.

What if? -- The Road Not Taken

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;        5 

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,        10 

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.        15 

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.        20 

  There are those who look at this poem, which is a personal favorite of many, myself included, and find inspiration in the words.  I used to as well.  For some reason, however, I have recently taken a second look at the poem because something doesn't seem to make sense to me.  Why is the title of the poem "The Road Not Taken?"  Why would the speaker be telling the story about a fork in the road with a sigh?  Was it a sigh of contentment or longing or resignation?  I suppose we don't know enough about the poem on it's own to say for sure.  


  Enter my mother, the English professor extraordinaire, who had some insight to offer on the writer.  She said the poem was written as a friendly jab at Frosts friend and colleague, Edward Thomas.  See, they would frequently take walks around the countryside together to talk and enjoy the fresh air but when they would come to a fork in the road Thomas would fret for a long time about which road to take.  Then, having made a decision, would worry that the other road, "the road not taken," would have been a better choice.  She went on to say that Frost found it funny that so many people had found inspiration in the verses because he actually intended the meaning to be ironic. 


  This got me thinking about the "what if" game that we all tend to play so often when things don't seem to measure up to our expectations.  You can apply this idea to just about every aspect of life, love, career, etc.  "If only I had made this decision instead of that one, things would be different."  I suppose the old proverb about the grass always being greener on the other side of the fence would apply here, too.  The funny thing is, the grass IS always greener from the other side of the fence.  You see, it depends on your point of view.  


  If you are standing at a distance, say in your own yard looking across the fence at your neighbors yard, you see an angled view of the grass.  All you see is the green of the fresh blades.  These fresh green blades of grass hide the dead thatch between them and the lawn appears greener, from that point of view.  However, standing on your own lawn looking straight down, it becomes very difficult to overlook the dead thatch that appears so obviously between the fresh green blades from this perspective.  It's an optical illusion, you see.  


  I suppose this is a long way of saying that taking the road less traveled by actually makes no difference at all.  Each way lends itself to it's own version of triumphs and trials.  It becomes dangerous to assume that one side of the fence is greener than the other without taking into account the proper perspective.  In times of trial it is easy to long for the chance to go back to the fork in the road and take the other path.  On the other hand, it is just as likely that having taken the other path, that version of ourselves would be longing for the chance to take the road that we find ourselves on now.  It is possible to loose a lot of time and effort longing for the road not taken.  It is far more difficult to live in the moment and hope for times of triumph when currently enduring times of trial. 

Equus

So, I had a really great day yesterday.  First of all, I had a day off of work so no more listening to ridiculous people with ridiculous complaints...  Then I got to sleep a little late in the morning which is something I haven't had in a while.  Can I just say that I love sleep!  I love the way that sleep melts away the cares of the world.  Plus dreams are far more vivid in the morning.

I went to lunch with my mom and brother at a new place called the La Jolla Groves.  It is run by a brilliant chef who single-handedly took all of Utah by storm and has created three of the most successful restaurants in the state.  The food was just the right balance of light, substance, flavor and texture.  I got the beef tenderloin in citrus-mango reduction sauce.  Mom got the Chicken Marsala and Jason got the basil pesto chicken with pasta. We ended up taking a few bites of each and when someone would say, "switch" we would pass our plates around the table in order to enjoy a taste of each dish.  I'm sure people in the restaurant were looking at us and wondering what was wrong with us.  We talked about all kinds of things.  My mom felt the need to "check up" on Jason's and my dating lives.  I told the story of how a potential relationship dissolved due to a lack of chemistry and Jason told how one of his great loves is now engaged and he seems to be a little riled up about it.  We observed to him that he is not nearly as ambivalent as he would like to (or rather like us to) believe he is.  It was a great conversation.  We even grabbed some lemon cake and chocolate mousse cake for dessert and each got a taste.

I got to hang out with my boys in the afternoon also.  I love my time with my boys.  I love being with my boys more than sleeping, and THAT is saying something.  I miss very much being able to come home, hit the door, put my things down and call out "hello?" and have my boys all come running, shouting, "DADDYYYYY."  See, during school they spend every school night with their mom.  I get them during most of the summer, holidays, weekends, etc.  It just seems like it's never enough time.  We played around for a while and made plans for the weekend.  I took the boys to Nickel City, a nickel arcade, a couple of weeks ago.  I figured I would let them play anything they wanted to and it would only be a nickel per game.  So... three hours and seventy dollars later, we left with the boys still clamoring for more.  Since then they have been begging to go back again and again.  I keep telling them that if we go all the time that two things will happen.  One, I will be broke, and two, it will stop being special for them to go.  I think instead we are going to go to the movie theater to see the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie.  The boys have been reading the books since they came out.

The crowning event of the day came later that evening when some friends of mine and I went to see the Westminster College production of Peter Shaffer's Equus.  Apparently, this play caused quite a controversial stir when Daniel Radcliff, of Harry Potter fame, was cast to play one of the main characters who at a certain point in the play strips naked and mounts a horse.  I had no idea about any of this when I said I would go, but I am glad that I didn't let any of the controversy cloud my opinion.  Peter Shaffer is the same author who wrote Amadeus, the story of Mozart told from perspective of his greatest rival: Antonio Salieri.  I had been a fan of his already and had never known about Equus.  Equus is a dual story of a troubled young boy who is sent to a mental institution after gouging the eyes out of six horses and of the psychiatrist who treats him.  It was a very interesting psychological play that worked with imagery, wording, absolutely brilliant staging and interwove the stories of each of the characters perfectly.  It was powerful and profound.  I truly enjoyed it very much.  If you have the opportunity to see it, I highly recommend it.  For you prudes out there, let me assure you that the nudity was done very tastefully behind a sheer scrim.  The idea of the scene was portrayed that way without being explicit.

We left the theater in a state of wonder.  We were able to draw parallels to very powerful symbolism and interesting similarities between the doctor and the patient.  The ultimate question that we were left with was, which one was crazy?  It's an interesting question to explore.