Nostalgia

Vast oblong Space

An Essay

“...to escape is the greatest of pleasures; street haunting in winter the greatest of adventures.”

—Virginia Woolf,  Street Haunting: A London Adventure

Let me try, then. Ignore the circumstance of crushing work, and I’ll go out for a good stroll. There’ll be no mere window from the world; let us try to make some things out.

It’s nice when it’s cooler—in the evening, or at night. Even better if it’s raining; best when snowing. But I haven’t seen snow for years. We’ll settle for rain.

The rain is pouring; the streets are flooding. It’s night, and I really can disappear for hours, come back drenched—there ought to be a gallon of rainwater in my shirt alone—but with better nerves. So then I have a cup of coffee and go to bed.

And in the morning the air is bright but not sharp. The fog mutes sight. And maybe I can ramble the streets to class, but the darkness affords me irresponsibility, and I should do well to take that.

That was then. This is now:

• time passes

That’s all. Time passes. I try to mark it with weekly hospital visits, but that fails when I start becoming nocturnal. The neighbor’s lights start to wink if it’s late enough. They remind me of cat eyes. I wish I had my girlfriend’s calico in my lap. She’s soft and pretty and warm. But now I’m in San Diego. I’m back where I started. With time comes distance.

“Narrower and narrower would [Clarissa’s] bed be...for the House sat so long that Richard insisted, after her illness, that she must sleep undisturbed.” —Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

A few months ago I had at least time to read. Now I can escape only in my miserable work. Lines close about me. This line in my code is wrong. This person threatens my six foot line. Please, step back. Think of the guilt.

I hope to cut all lines except the electronic. Clarissa’s friend Septimus is ill on account of his World War experiences. He passes later as a result. But Clarissa was similarly ill because of the influenza of 1919; she survived. What guilt does she feel? What hurt? Illness traumatizes too.

Ignore death for a bit. Let’s pull ourselves along a line to someplace nice. Imagine wonderfully fresh pineapple or mangoes. Such pleasure—

One should appreciate small pleasures. But if one loses their taste, or smell, one simply cannot. Imagine being in Lyon and unable to to feel the flavor, the goût.

I remember taking a class in spring focusing in great part on the expression and ritual of mourning. Much of the ritual there is collective. Can Zoom hold our tears?

Narrower and narrower I draw lines about me.

I do miss company. I miss in-person office hours. I miss warm nights and friendship and drinks by the cold grey sea.

I try to simulate the feeling of my girlfriend lying next to me in bed by pulling my blankets tighter around me. I’m warmer. But I’m now more isolated. I’m trapped at home, trapped in my mind. Viruses might not kill me now, but my mind tries its best. I see others living their lives at the cost of people like me, like my girlfriend; the idea of travelling any distance now leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. 

Go on, Stephen, live your life as best you can. Very good. Only essential trips, then.

So I should be good friends by now with the hospital staff. We see each other twice a week already.

I miss late-night boba runs. But every new trip, however small, brings with it increased risk. The people over the counter have lives. They have mothers too.

We spend one hundred twenty-five pages exploring Mrs. Ramsay in To the Lighthouse to lose her in one bracketed line. I have spent twenty years getting to know my mother. I hope not to lose her in one week. 

“Because dreams were oracles   

agile as wild-cats

we leapt on a raft of ice.”

—Susan Howe, Chanting at the Crystal Sea

The Ramsays, after three deaths and ten years, finally cross the passage to the lighthouse. The novel ends just as they reach the island.

We find a main theme of To the Lighthouse to be the primacy of the process over the final act. Which one is community spread? I’ll avoid that for a few years. I’ll imagine the process of getting somewhere. First, some memories:

• dropping in as the last-minute navigator for an assignment on Yosemite. We drove into the sun while it was rising, but before it rose fully, the photographers in the back were well asleep (it was around five in the morning). So then it was just me with Anna, the driver.

• cheese, candy, and plenty of fog on the way to Point Reyes. Great green fields and hills.

• stopping for gas in the Salinas Valley as the sun set, driving into the sun then; taking another detour in Berkeley for drinks before getting dropped off at my place

And maybe some future ones:

• pedaling railbikes in the hills above Fort Bragg

• huge cream puffs at the Wisconsin State Fair

• snow camping

The mystic Simone Weil had three encounters with Catholicism that counted. The first was on a family trip to a village on the Portuguese coast. Keep the faith, do good works. Gain faith even in these times—

What did you think then, Madam Weil? You thought:

“this life is a grave, mysterious moment

of hearing voices by the water and seeing

olive trees stretching out in the dirt,

of accepting the heavens cracked with rain.”

—Edward Hirsch, Away from Dogma