Deja View

I've visted Seattle three times in my life. The first time, I stayed the longest. I was there ten days, and it was my first real vacation on my own. Prior to that I'd either been a graduate student, and decided it was too expensive to travel, or I was teaching full-time, including summers. In any case, I was never much of a vacationing type to begin with, and so the idea of going somewhere to visit didn't occur to me.

I picked Seattle partly because I knew some people there, and the first time, I was visiting to hang out with someone I knew reasonably well. Overall, it was a rather relaxing experience. I didn't do a lot of the touristy things, and in fact, spent quite a few days visiting the University of Washington campus, since having been a student for so many years, I happen to enjoy college campuses.

Of all the institutions we have, college campuses is a peculiar one. When do so many people of similar age and similar educational background essentially live in a communist like society. Dorms are typically not significantly better than another, unless you choose to live off campus, and let your wealthy parents set you up. At the end of each year, you have to decide new living arrangements.

Many students are required to eat on-campus food, buy items on-campus. Sure, there are always choices off-campus, but for a non-commuter campus, like Cornell, where I went, there's not much choice.

Campuses try to create a weirdish environment that resembles nothing like the modern real world. Fraternities, honor societies, clubs. Sure, some of these things exist in the real world, but not with the same kind of access. And college, unlike the real world, is ostensibly about teaching and learning. My one great lament is that there's too little teaching in the real world.

In any case, that's not what I really wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about my vacation.

The second time I went to Seattle, I went for four days. This was for an interview, so the first two days were spent travelling to Seattle, and then doing the interview itself. I had dinner with two softies (can they really be called that?), ie, employees of Microsoft. They talked about the value of a Maryland education, where they both received their degree.

On one day, I still managed to visit the UW campus, at least, I think I did.

The last time I went, which was less than a month ago, I went for about 6 days, though really I only spent about 3 days in the city. On the day that I was planning to head back, I decided to both tour the neighborhood where my cousin lived, which was not that far from where my friend stayed, and then head to the University again.

It's an odd sense to navigate in a city you've only really been to once, to see the same sights, to visit the same restaurants, the same stores, to take the same busses, to try to recall what happened the previous time I was there.

I went to visit the campus, and realized while I remember some things, such as a museum, or the bookstore, or the Ave, it was a hazy memory. I knew, for example, that I wanted to get a haircut at the same place I had it three years ago, and couldn't remember exactly where this place was, nor its name. I finally saw "Rudy's" and realized that was the place I had gone.

I visited the same computer store, the University bookstore, which had changed somewhat. The coffee shop was no longer in the center between two parts of the store, as it had been the last time I was there. However, overall, the structure seemed the same.

Perhaps the biggest change on the campus was the Paul Allen computer science building. Five stories tall, with a wide open central area, modern architecture, paintings---it puts all computer science departments I've seen to shame, especially Maryland. Unless Maryland gets a rich alum like Sergei Brin to cough up a lot of money, Maryland's doomed to have a subpar building, which lacks imagination, is stifling. It took a long time before campuses realized that even those in the math and sciences want a building that is spectacular to look at and work in.

I've yet to see the new building that University of Illinois was planning to build. Last time I was there, they were still in the middle of construction.

Ultimately, I see people as creatures that float in time, and that by revisiting a place over time, we see the effect of man on nature. This kind of feeling happens all the time, but is made more acute by revisiting the places you've seen.

I'm reminded of the film Touching the Void. In one of the extras, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates revisit Siula Grande, where the two had climbed in the late 80s. The two were the first pair to climb the west face of this Peruvian mountain. During the climb down, Simpson broke his leg, and Yates had to abandon him, or die himself. He had been helping Simpson down by letting down rope down the mountain, then telling Simpson to hold ground, and then coming down himself to meet him.

At one point, he lets the rope down, and Simpson goes over the edge of a cliff. Simon is holding him up at the top, not realizing, due to the blinding snow, that he's over the edge of a cliff. Hours pass and Simon concludes something has gone dreadfully wrong, and he's beginning to slip. So, he makes the fateful decision to cut the rope and let Joe fall to his death.

Only.

He doesn't die. He falls into an ice cave, with injuries, and manages, over the next three days, to crawl back to the base camp, while losing a great deal of weight, with nearly a broken leg, and no food.

Joe Simpson went on to write a book, mostly to defend Simon, who had taken flak for leaving his climbing partner to die. Simpson's successful book lead to a writing career, then to a semi-documentary. As part of the documentary, both were invited back to visit the base camp at Siula Grande (actually, a third guy, Richard, who was mostly around to keep guard at the base camp, also arrived).

During the visit to the site, Simpson suddenly starts getting a panic attack. He wants to remove his shirt. He remembers the incident, which he had compartmentalized away and dealt with, and it comes back, as a torrent of emotions. He says that the incident was life-altering. Before that, he was fearless. He felt the ordeal had taken something away from him as a man.

The closest thing I can relate this to, having never been in such danger, is an episode of Star Trek, the Next Generation, where Picard is made into a Borg, and then forced to kill other members of Starfleet. He feels that he isn't strong enough to resist the hive mind that is ordering him to do this, and feels he's lost some of his humanity in the process. I know it's weak to compare a fictional series like this to a real event, but that's what it made me think of.

I bring this story of Simpson to point out the importance of location to memory. Some places, even over time, still have the power to trigger memories of a time. And while I didn't go through the same kinds of emotions, I was at least very aware of trying to retread where I had been before. I don't know what I was expecting or hoping or anything. It was just something I wanted to do.

I have a friend who wants to seek new experiences, new sensations, so his sense of what I did was probably that I seek reassurance in the familiar, rather than the thrill of the unknown. I'd probably have to agree.