Brain Drain Blog

Archive for April, 2006

While water communicates the concept of fertility and femininity, its fluidity also represents the cycle of life and death. In her novel, Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf uses these many aspects of water to symbolize the significance of Clarissa Dalloway?s experiences with Peter Walsh.

On the opening page, Clarissa Dalloway remembers plunging from her bedroom window into the still morning air, ?like a flap of a wave; a kiss of a wave; chill and sharp and yet (for a girl of eighteen as she then was) solemn, feeling as she did? that something awful was about to happen? (3). Clarissa, prior to the war, finds this wave invigorating and filled with potential. She wants to immerse herself in it and be carried upon it. In her innocence, she enters into the cycle, yet a part of her understands that the wave will eventually crash and return to the sea. Her relationship with Peter Walsh is pending, as is the war, and she senses that her life is about to change.

As Clarissa?s thought?s return to the present, she explains how her ability to freely immerse herself in this life is inhibited. As she walks the city streets, she has ?a perpetual sense? of being out, out, far out to sea and alone? that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day? (8). Riding her wave at Burton as a young woman, she is carried into a socially unacceptable and delicious encounter with another young woman, Sally Seton. Bound by the suppression of her innermost truth, because Clarissa understands that society will not allow for the enjoyment of such encounters, she protects her innermost thoughts from the scrutiny of others. This secret causes her to feel secluded and alone, even among the busy streets of Westminster.

Peter Walsh is a threat to Clarissa?s secret. His love for her drives him to question everything about her, the intimacy of which she prefers to avoid although she does enjoy the attention. After an entire summer spent at Burton in their youth, Peter can stand it no longer. He needs to know how she feels about him and confronts her. They stand ?with the fountain between them, the spout (it was broken) dribbling water incessantly? (64). Woolf uses this fountain to illustrate their lack of fluid communication. Peter begs Clarissa for the truth, his tears and words dribbling as freely as his emotion. Clarissa, sensing the danger of being so open in return, stands rigid in the solitude of her secrets. She rejects Peter for the less intimate Richard, breaking both their hearts much like that pump. After suffering the blow of unrequited love, Peter crosses the sea, leaving for India to serve in the war, thus ending their first cycle together.

The image of the sea represents loneliness, separation and disconnect again for Clarissa and Peter. The one man who knows her better than any other has gone. When each of them is in their fifties, Peter returns across the watery divide and they are forced to examine the resurfacing emotions that return with him. For Peter these emotions come back in full, fluid force. He asks himself, ?bursting into tears this morning, what was all that about? (80)? As he shows an outpouring of emotion as he did the first time, Clarissa is again externally solid and unyeilding, ?as cold as an icicle? (80). Later, as Peter visits Regents Park, he hears the bubbling ?voice of an ancient spring spouting from the earth? (80). He envisions a woman, perhaps a vision of Clarissa, placing one hand on her hip and holding the other out like a pump. This image is reminiscent of the broken pump that stood between himself and Clarissa at Burton and ends the second full cycle between them. Once again, they are lost in the sea of loneliness.

As fluid as the water is that represents their experience, Clarissa and Peter have remained unchanged. Unlike a wave that climaxes, crashes and rolls back into the ocean, Clarissa does not flow with her desires but remains an unyielding object merely riding the surface of the tide. Peter is still taken with Clarissa and spouting his bubbling and gurgling emotion, but his love never fully flows to fruition. Clarissa continues to burry deep her gift of Sally Seton?s kiss to avoid the chaos it would bring if it ever drifted to the surface. She concludes that all of life, as it exists day by day, is orderly and enjoyable in its sturdy and unmoving way, reaffirming her choice to suppress her true love for both Sally and Peter in exchange for her security with Richard.

Washington Park stirs with signs of life this morning. Along the green lawn of the dog park, a towering wall of weeping cherry trees beckons me with long, flowing branches. I sense their burden as they bow deeply under the weight of prolific and cascading pale-pink tears. Entering deeper into the park, I encounter a stand of embittered crabapples. Why do they resist the dawn of spring, allowing no more exposure of their crimson petals than a narrow slit? Each bud looks wounded.

At the bone-dry fountain hundreds of tulips stand at attention encircling its statue of Moses. His staff has been stolen by vandals. The tulips before him shroud their pastel petals with thick green hoods, hesitant to open themselves to him. Perhaps they know that he has failed to deliver the Ten Commandments. Only the fiery orange tulips in the outer garden stretch their showy heads beyond Moses and toward the sky. I join them and follow suit. The sun, in an instant, permeates the chill and warms my face. Through the slit of one eyelid, I see the silver glint of an airplane flash against the deep blue sky.

I have not returned to this place since September 11, 2001, yet that day never feels far behind. I remember so vividly how I drove from Albany toward New York at five o?clock in the morning. As the sun rose, the golden fog had spun itself like cotton between pockets of pines. Enamored with the beauty of that particular dawn, I searched for the camera I had carelessly left on the kitchen counter. I sputtered aloud some poetic lines to capture what I saw, but found that even my best effort fell short.

FAA training took place over the span of two days every September, the 2001 session being the fourth anniversary of my hire date as a flight attendant. Normally I would grumble through the rigors of testing, but that morning I was glad to have been witness to the beauty of daybreak. I attempted to review first aid, evacuation, weapons identification and hijacking procedures along my drive, but by the time I reached the skyline, I was again distracted by beauty. The humidity that had softened silhouettes earlier had given way to a crisp, bright landscape. The entire city was gilded in sunlight, every detail razor sharp. I wanted to capture that view, cursing myself again for forgetting my camera. I took the scene in one last time before entering the training facility across the river from the World Trade Center.

Five minutes after I entered the building, the first plane struck the tower. The flight attendants who were lounging about the commons waiting for class to begin congealed into a gawking mass of slack-lipped witnesses. I joined in. As we thrust our faces against the window in disbelief, the second plane reinforced, with cruel clarity, the tragedy before us. Our only news buzzed in Spanish through the snowy reception of UHF. A limited translation amounted to suicide bombers, being under attack, and the grounding of all aircraft. As fellow flight attendants called parents trapped in the towers, some said their last good-byes watching as people began to jump. I ran outside, desperate to escape the horror, only to enter the parking garage in time to face the first tower collapse.

Military aircraft swarmed close over my head. Was it the U.S.? Was it ?them?? I couldn?t see. I feared another strike and crouched behind a green pick-up truck. There I hugged my knees and rocked myself alone crying ?Oh my God. Oh my God.? Unable to hold back the grief, my heart split. Unintelligibly, my horror spilled forth.

Gaining my wits, I found my car and drove back toward Albany, away from the hideous pillars of smoke. People impatient with the crowded highways sped past me on the shoulder of the road. I shrieked foul words waving my arms at nobody in particular. Distracted, I missed my turn. I had to look back toward the smoldering remains of 3,000 people, the second tower having collapsed.

As I drove West, Howard Stern clamored for war. I jammed my finger into a random button changing the frequency to something soothing. The further I drove, the more traffic thinned, making way to clearer roads. Officers in u-turn areas watched for typical speeders. In Albany, two people laughed on the corner of Madison and Pearl. I was infuriated. Didn?t they know? Hadn?t they seen? The announcer said the attack had happened four hours prior. How could that be? Trapped within a moment, time was marching on without me.

I met a friend here in Washington Park. It seemed appropriate having been a former burial ground. We sat reverent on the grass. Fractured thoughts flooded my conversation. ?How can I wear my stripes now? How am I supposed to protect my passengers from suicide bombers? I wish my father would return my message. Will I be fired if I can?t bring myself to fly??

Before me was the Corning Tower of Empire Plaza, a citadel bathed in sunlight, emerging from the tree line. How it stood, in the wake of what I had seen, defied my disintegrated logic. If lines could be drawn from the odd angle of the tower?s outer walls, they would merge where I sat. I remember sensing the geometric order and yet it offered me no comfort. What was the point?

On Willet Street now, the view of the park is spectacular. I looked for a brownstone apartment here once, just a few months prior to the attack. After the attack, the closest I came was a carriage house out back where I spent an hour at three o?clock every Thursday. There I attempted to piece together my shattered identity with Diane. She was a psychologist who had volunteered her service to those New York Police and Fireman suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. She said she could help me to sleep, to move forward, and having taken a company offered leave for the next year, to explore what to do next.

I lived nearby on State Street then, number 332. Passing now, I see my old living room window looking out at Picotte Hall. I remember an earthquake rattling the foundation there that November. My ivory sheers have been replaced by red velvet drapes shut tight against the light. Across the street, I see ghosts of old friends who have moved away from number 335. The neighboring 334 is dark. The man who lived here was one of the ?dust people? escaping the tower. He and his wife had just bought the building to create their dream home, yet it went up for sale in early 2002. I wonder where they are now; the homeless man too, who used to smile and call me ?Fifth Avenue.? I hope he survived the winter. I used to give him gloves to fend off the cold. This damp, stone stoop remains unchanged except for a few planters. It always stood in shadow, no matter the season or time of day. Further down State Street, across from the Capital Building, the police continue to stand guard at Empire Plaza. They are lasting remnants of protective measures stemming from impotent arsenic threats to the governor.

I have moved five times since that address, downsizing along the way. I have held a number of jobs as well, from farming knee-deep in chicken feces and doing freelance publicity, to the part time designing of GUI systems for the United States Office of Management and Budget. I did what it took to pay rent, resorting to the trade of my new dining suite and antique sewing machine when necessary. I?ve learned that I?m adaptive and resilient, but that lesson came with the high price of all that I had and all that I was.

This neighborhood has new memories for me now, not tainted by September 11th. At the corner of State and Dove is where my fianc? and I first kissed three years ago. He stood over six feet at street level and I hopped up on the curb to reach his lips. We threw our heads back and laughed in the soft glow of the street lamp as a lone electric guitar from a window above played Jimmy Hendrix. I have to leave this reverie now to meet Tim. We?re choosing our wedding bands today.

Back in Washington Park stands a statue of Robert Burns. Engraved in its base is part of his Epistle to Dr. Blacklock:

To make a happy fireside climb
To weans and wife
That?s the true pathos and sublime
Of human life

At the picnic table where I used to sit alone with my journal, a family of five enjoys a picnic lunch. Across the street, two daycare women push triplet strollers carting six beautiful children. A young boy and his pup enjoy the otherwise empty dog park, running in circles to and fro. These children are evidence of connection; evidence that this sublime human life is among us, within us.

I note the hour. Time has marched on, and now, I march with it.