This morning at work I was wondering whether T could swim? In session I asked her and she said "is it important?" I said, "no just wondering" T said, "yes I can swim what about you?" I said, "Yeah, not good but yeah", T then said "I wonder if your wondering whether I will drown here?" I looked at her and laughed and said "Oh thats corny", T said, "why is it?" I said "I dunno, it just sounds corny" but as I sat with that it begun to come to me and I realized underneath the apparent off hand question there was a deeper meaning and I said, "yeah I do worry that I may pull you under or that I will survive and you drown". T said, that was your birth mothers fear, that you would survive and not her. With that I thought about survivors guilt and how though I had to stay away from my adoptive mother these past 3yrs, I do feel guilt that I have my own family and am in therapy working on a better existence and she my adoptive 83yr old mother is nearing her end, if not already gone, but she never could swim and often I felt her drowning and me having to dive in and save her only to have her walked on my head on the way out without even looking back.

We spoke some more about how though we both may get dragged down into my unconscious, we will both rise to the surface again.

So much for simple questions, I would have argued black is white that there was no deeper meaning to the apparent off the cuff question, but there really was more to it then just that.