In the Waiting Room - Elizabeth Bishop

Day 14: In the style of your favourite writer.

In Worcester, Massachusetts, I went with Aunt Consuelo to keep her dentist's appointment and sat and waited for her in the dentist's waiting room. It was winter. It got dark early. The waiting room was full of grown-up people, arctics and overcoats, lamps and magazines. My aunt was inside what seemed like a long time and while I waited I read the National Geographic (I could read) and carefully studied the photographs: the inside of a volcano, black, and full of ashes; then it was spilling over in rivulets of fire. Osa and Martin Johnson dressed in riding breeches, laced boots, and pith helmets. A dead man slung on a pole --"Long Pig," the caption said. Babies with pointed heads wound round and round with string; black, naked women with necks wound round and round with wire like the necks of light bulbs. Their breasts were horrifying. I read it right straight through. I was too shy to stop. And then I looked at the cover: the yellow margins, the date. Suddenly, from inside, came an oh! of pain --Aunt Consuelo's voice-- not very loud or long. I wasn't at all surprised; even then I knew she was a foolish, timid woman. I might have been embarrassed, but wasn't. What took me completely by surprise was that it was me: my voice, in my mouth. Without thinking at all I was my foolish aunt, I--we--were falling, falling, our eyes glued to the cover of the National Geographic, February, 1918. I said to myself: three days and you'll be seven years old. I was saying it to stop the sensation of falling off the round, turning world. into cold, blue-black space. But I felt: you are an I, you are an Elizabeth, you are one of them. Why should you be one, too? I scarcely dared to look to see what it was I was. I gave a sidelong glance --I couldn't look any higher-- at shadowy gray knees, trousers and skirts and boots and different pairs of hands lying under the lamps. I knew that nothing stranger had ever happened, that nothing stranger could ever happen. Why should I be my aunt, or me, or anyone? What similarities-- boots, hands, the family voice I felt in my throat, or even the National Geographic and those awful hanging breasts-- held us all together or made us all just one? How--I didn't know any word for it--how "unlikely". . . How had I come to be here, like them, and overhear a cry of pain that could have got loud and worse but hadn't? The waiting room was bright and too hot. It was sliding beneath a big black wave, another, and another. Then I was back in it. The War was on. Outside, in Worcester, Massachusetts, were night and slush and cold, and it was still the fifth of February, 1918. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15211#sthash.IhH39L1n.dpuf

Do you ever feel like you are just - here - on earth, and your curiosity and intelligence as a human being begin to catch up with your ignorance and naivety (inevitable in such a huge world), and it is such a terrifying realisation that you are alive and a person. You are here. Well, this happened to me after reading this poem last year at University, and recently I have been thinking about it again. I don't have a favourite writer, but this is the closest thing I have written that is inspired by someone I believe was a true creative genius - Elizabeth Bishop.

In In The Waiting Room[1] Bishop explores a childhood memory that isn’t just a recollection – a few stanzas exploring imagery connoted with nostalgia (although these aspects are present), but a realisation of what it is to be human. In Lanae Celeste’s essay,[2] she draws specific themes of Bishop’s views as a feminist – and what it means to be a woman.[3] In the last stanza when the narrator is brought back to reality, she states ‘The war was on’ and Celeste notes that ‘The ‘war’ is both World War I (WWI) which was happening in the historical backdrop of Bishop’s memory, and the Women’s Rights Movement that was taking place a the time this poem was written.’[4] This is an interesting analytical stance to take on the main issue and theme of the poem, but I think it is broader and more universal than that – despite the fact that Bishop was indeed a feminist.

The poem reminds me of a comment David Foster Wallace makes in an interview, ‘We all suffer alone in the real world; true empathy’s impossible.’[5] This is a notion that the narrator in In The Waiting Room struggles with just by reading a magazine – a source of information and entertainment.

It is the harsh and eye opening images of the volcano, ‘black, and full of ashes; then it was spilling over in rivulets of fire,’[6] the black women, ‘with necks wound round and round with wire like the necks of light bulbs. Their breasts were horrifying’[7] that contrast with the reality of sitting in a waiting room with people who all look the same; ‘I gave a sidelong glance --I couldn't look any higher-- at shadowy gray knees, trousers and skirts and boots and different pairs of hands lying under the lamps,’[8] and trigger the existentialist in the narrator.

It is the specific reference that Bishop makes to the narrator turning seven in exactly three days that encapsulate this poem; ‘I said to myself: three days and you'll be seven years old. I was saying it to stop the sensation of falling off the round, turning world. into cold, blue-black space.’[9] It is the date on the cover of the magazine that brings this to her attention, and as an evidently bright young girl, the narrator realizes for the first time what it is to be human; what connects and disconnects her from the world and everything, and everyone in it, or at least questions this concept of being human; ‘Why should I be my aunt, or me, or anyone?’[10] These questions and thought processes that the narrator has throughout the poem trigger similar ones in the readers mind. It is universal, much like a lot of Bishop’s other work. Why is she human? Why am I human? I didn’t get the choice to be or not to be; so who did choose, then?

The poem ends the way all of these questions and thought processes do; by going back to our day to day routines and just getting on with life, because there is nothing that can answer our questions definitely. ‘Then I was back in it. The War was on. Outside, in Worcester, Massachusetts, were night and slush and cold, and it was still the fifth of February, 1918.’[11] Nothing in the world has changed, but for the narrator, everything has. The particular reference to the ‘night and slush and cold’[12] offers the possibility of pathetic fallacy, but Bishop carefully crafts this poem to finish with no insight to how the narrator is feeling, and so, the reader decides for themselves, perhaps by how they feel themselves after reading the poem.

Notes:
[1] ‘In The Waiting Room’ Elizabeth Bishop, The Norton Anthology of Poetry, p. 1521
[2] ‘Poetry Analysis – In The Waiting Room by Elizabeth Bishop’ Lanae Celeste, http://www.helium.com/items/1056260-poetry-analysis-in-the-waiting-room-by-elizabeth-bishop [accessed 5th April 2012].
[3] Ibid
[4] Ibid para. 5
[5] ‘A Conversation With David Foster Wallace’ by Larry McCaffery http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/book/?fa=customcontent&GCOI=15647100621780&extrasfile=A09F8296-B0D0-B086-B6A350F4F59FD1F7.html [accessed 5th April 2012]
[6] ‘In The Waiting Room,’ Elizabeth Bishop, The Norton Anthology of Poetry, pp. 1521-1522
[7] Ibid, p.1522
[8] Ibid
[9] Ibid
[10] Ibid
[11] Ibid
[12] Ibid

In Worcester, Massachusetts, I went with Aunt Consuelo to keep her dentist's appointment and sat and waited for her in the dentist's waiting room. It was winter. It got dark early. The waiting room was full of grown-up people, arctics and overcoats, lamps and magazines. My aunt was inside what seemed like a long time and while I waited I read the National Geographic (I could read) and carefully studied the photographs: the inside of a volcano, black, and full of ashes; then it was spilling over in rivulets of fire. Osa and Martin Johnson dressed in riding breeches, laced boots, and pith helmets. A dead man slung on a pole --"Long Pig," the caption said. Babies with pointed heads wound round and round with string; black, naked women with necks wound round and round with wire like the necks of light bulbs. Their breasts were horrifying. I read it right straight through. I was too shy to stop. And then I looked at the cover: the yellow margins, the date. Suddenly, from inside, came an oh! of pain --Aunt Consuelo's voice-- not very loud or long. I wasn't at all surprised; even then I knew she was a foolish, timid woman. I might have been embarrassed, but wasn't. What took me completely by surprise was that it was me: my voice, in my mouth. Without thinking at all I was my foolish aunt, I--we--were falling, falling, our eyes glued to the cover of the National Geographic, February, 1918. I said to myself: three days and you'll be seven years old. I was saying it to stop the sensation of falling off the round, turning world. into cold, blue-black space. But I felt: you are an I, you are an Elizabeth, you are one of them. Why should you be one, too? I scarcely dared to look to see what it was I was. I gave a sidelong glance --I couldn't look any higher-- at shadowy gray knees, trousers and skirts and boots and different pairs of hands lying under the lamps. I knew that nothing stranger had ever happened, that nothing stranger could ever happen. Why should I be my aunt, or me, or anyone? What similarities-- boots, hands, the family voice I felt in my throat, or even the National Geographic and those awful hanging breasts-- held us all together or made us all just one? How--I didn't know any word for it--how "unlikely". . . How had I come to be here, like them, and overhear a cry of pain that could have got loud and worse but hadn't? The waiting room was bright and too hot. It was sliding beneath a big black wave, another, and another. Then I was back in it. The War was on. Outside, in Worcester, Massachusetts, were night and slush and cold, and it was still the fifth of February, 1918. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15211#sthash.IhH39L1n.dpuf

In Worcester, Massachusetts, I went with Aunt Consuelo to keep her dentist's appointment and sat and waited for her in the dentist's waiting room. It was winter. It got dark early. The waiting room was full of grown-up people, arctics and overcoats, lamps and magazines. My aunt was inside what seemed like a long time and while I waited I read the National Geographic (I could read) and carefully studied the photographs: the inside of a volcano, black, and full of ashes; then it was spilling over in rivulets of fire. Osa and Martin Johnson dressed in riding breeches, laced boots, and pith helmets. A dead man slung on a pole --"Long Pig," the caption said. Babies with pointed heads wound round and round with string; black, naked women with necks wound round and round with wire like the necks of light bulbs. Their breasts were horrifying. I read it right straight through. I was too shy to stop. And then I looked at the cover: the yellow margins, the date. Suddenly, from inside, came an oh! of pain --Aunt Consuelo's voice-- not very loud or long. I wasn't at all surprised; even then I knew she was a foolish, timid woman. I might have been embarrassed, but wasn't. What took me completely by surprise was that it was me: my voice, in my mouth. Without thinking at all I was my foolish aunt, I--we--were falling, falling, our eyes glued to the cover of the National Geographic, February, 1918. I said to myself: three days and you'll be seven years old. I was saying it to stop the sensation of falling off the round, turning world. into cold, blue-black space. But I felt: you are an I, you are an Elizabeth, you are one of them. Why should you be one, too? I scarcely dared to look to see what it was I was. I gave a sidelong glance --I couldn't look any higher-- at shadowy gray knees, trousers and skirts and boots and different pairs of hands lying under the lamps. I knew that nothing stranger had ever happened, that nothing stranger could ever happen. Why should I be my aunt, or me, or anyone? What similarities-- boots, hands, the family voice I felt in my throat, or even the National Geographic and those awful hanging breasts-- held us all together or made us all just one? How--I didn't know any word for it--how "unlikely". . . How had I come to be here, like them, and overhear a cry of pain that could have got loud and worse but hadn't? The waiting room was bright and too hot. It was sliding beneath a big black wave, another, and another. Then I was back in it. The War was on. Outside, in Worcester, Massachusetts, were night and slush and cold, and it was still the fifth of February, 1918. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15211#sthash.IhH39L1n.dpuf