The first time we visited San Francisco, as a family, we didn’t make it to the Alcatraz tour. The line went on for several blocks and none of us had the patience to wait around. We had too many other spots we wanted to see. But a few years ago when we returned to San Francisco, we did the Alcatraz tour. Yes, it’s a tourist landmark and an interesting place to visit. But San Francisco is filled with interesting places to visit. I used to work in a prison – as a librarian and Spanish teacher – and they aren’t my favorite spots. So why did I consent to 3 or 4 hours at one of the most depressing prisons on Earth?
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As our ferry draws within viewing distance of the rock, I’m thinking Clint Eastwood. Or was that Matt Damon? And then I realize I’m looking at a chunk of stone in the middle of San Francisco Bay that once housed criminals like Al Capone. It’s jarring. I feel unsettled, troubled, and yet if right that second someone asked what was bothering me, I wouldn’t even think to mention Alcatraz. In this sense, I consider the rock to be one of the ultimate tricksters – if, that is, a place can be a trickster.
The tour, I recall, was well organized. We were in groups where a guide explained the who, what, and where, then we could wander around the island. This was the most interesting part. We strolled past old, crumbling buildings, rusted fences, the vestiges of lives long gone. I began to feel strange. But it was more than strange. The rolling, but limited landscapes started to feel familiar.
I immediately distrust these feelings. I’m a fiction writer, I spin dramas in my head that won’t ever see the light of day. But the feeling persisted. It shadowed me. Later, we made our way back into the main building and came to this sign:
Here are the rules! One visit a month from immediate family. Food and drinks not permitted. Visiting hours spelled out. No smoking. No touching. Keep in mind that Alcatraz functioned as a prison from 1933 to March 21, 1963, nearly 30 years of occupation. Except for the visit restrictions, these rules look like those posted in middle school hallways when I taught Spanish to hormonal teens.
I wondered, for some reason, about the employees and their families who lived on the island. We passed some of their crumbling homes, their crumbling dancing hall, and I felt increasingly depressed. I just wanted to get the hell away from the island, back into the city.
By the time we returned to the main building, I wandered into the bookstore and gift shop and found a really sketchy history of Alcatraz. But there was a lot of information about the employees and their families who had lived on the island. Scanning the pages, looking at the photos, I suddenly experienced a kind of resonance I recognized. I had felt this on the streets of Edinburgh, in certain parts of Ecuador. Recognition. I began to piece together my emotions and started to wonder if I had been a young child on this island. I immediately dismissed it as my fiction writing self. Alcatraz and those kids would be a great premise for a story. But I’ve never quite been able to shake the feeling. And here’s why:
It was those three years I spent working in a prison. Life before writing. In retrospect, I have long since realized that those three years felt like an unsettled vestige of some other life, that I had something to repay. I hesitate to use the word karma, I hate the word, but it had that same, heavy and oppressive feeling to it. When we toured Alcatraz, the pieces seemed to slide together.
I’ve never explored this through regression, have no desire to. I’m in this life now and want no further details about that life then. But the unsettled feeling persists. The next time we visit San Francisco, I’m determined to spend more time communing with the seals.
Cyth – I found sedona distracting, too overrun with tourists. I remember we climbed to the airport vortex, but we didn't experience anything except annoyance.
Gypsy – I've been in places like that. You just want to flee. Fast.
Nat – do keep us posted!
Wonderful post.
I have just found me a regressionist, and as soon as funds allow, I am going to check out a few unsettling things myself.
tried leaving a comment earlier and it wouldn't take – the message continues to read "transferring data from s35.sitemeter" – in any event, browsing here again has reminded me of the time i spent with my brother in an old farmhouse in arkansas years ago – there was such an ominous air in that house that i literally sat up all night, on the floor, barricaded behind a self-built barrier, unable to sleep – and a sense of fear that i don't remember ever having experienced [with one or two exceptions perhaps] – but a deep dark terrifying fear – and i cut short my time there as it was too overwhelming for me –
I feel so drawn to many of you. I too, have experienced similar situations. The most profound and confusing was in Sedona. Before going there on my honeymoon, I had a number of people tell me that I was going to love it. We stayed our first night near Bell Rock ( I think that's the name ), a supposed vortex. I was beside myself with discomfort. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't sit still, I couldn't focus.It was mental and it was physical. My new husband offered , in the middle of the night, to find other accomodations. I stuck it out , but never felt comfortable, or even like myself.
I too, wanted to study parapsychology, ooooo so many years ago. My choice would have been Duke as well. I took another path, and "that has made all the difference". Sometimes, you find yourself going round and round a central point in a most circuitous path. I feel myself questing again.
I have to commend "anonymous" for his (or her) comments. I thought of medium James Van Praagh, who has commented in his book several occasions when he was overwhelmed by impressions or "left over resonance" of negative places, so much so that he became physically ill. Not too long ago I worked briefly with a psychic who came to "clean" the negative energies of a house where a mentally ill person had lived; all those years of pain and desperation, and possibly "earth bound" entities, unable to find their way to better realms of consciousness.
I agree……..the seals seem a much better place to visit!
How cool that we ended up studying the paranormal in other ways!
I had some kind of "scene" that sort of passed through my mind the other night of an asian face that was in a metal container that was sinking to the bottom of the sea. Now I wonder if I was in WWII and went down on a ship. (Born in 1953) I do know that I have a fear of being trapped in something that I can't swim out of – maybe you spent some time at Alcatraz in some position – possibly as a guard? The job you had in this life could just be a continuation of something you are working out having to do with the penal system.
I wanted to go to Virginia Beach to study parapsychology.
Interesting story, Butternut! I wanted to go to Duke to study parapsychology. Who was the researcher in Ediburgh??
I love Edinburgh. I have always felt very comfortable there and found my way around very easily. I've climbed up Arthur's Seat a couple of times. It's a kind of energy hot spot. I went to Edinburgh for the first time when I was 19 and I was thinking of studying paranormal psychology. The most well known researcher of the time was in Edinburgh and I wanted to meet him. When I got there I was told that he had passed away a week before I got there. I took it as a sign.
And that heavy oppressiveness is why you should move!
wv: perboat – per boat!?
there are certain geographical areas that i have lived/visited in which i have always felt like i was "home" – the southwest – and the rocky mountains – and then others where i've never been in this life, but feel as if i have and actually become "homesick" for – since being in delaware i have had numerous situations where i absolutely cannot go into a particular building – one is a popular locally-owned restaurant downtown on main street – i feel as if i cannot breathe there – i feel oppression and an "aged" feeling that is suffocating – and that is the one predominant feeling i have here – one of "old age" and heaviness and oppression and death – it permeates the air here – well, to me it does – in a very visceral literal way – it's odd your post today because this oppressiveness is one of the reasons i am so unhappy here – it literally permeates the air i breathe – and i have thought of it a lot lately – especially in light of my planning to leave soon – i had thought that just being near my daughters and their families would be enough to me – to overcome the forsaken quality of life i feel here otherwise, but it has become no longer enough – sorry, i'm rambling and i digress – but i totally know about which you speak – and totally agree with cj's comment – hey, cj!!!;)
great post, macgregors!
Vicki – When I visited Edinburgh, I felt as you do about Italy. I also knew my way around, never got lost. It felt like home.
Could be several things but usually the feeling of a past life reverberates more like a memory and also you can "feel" the memory like cj.m
My husband and I were having dinner in Sausalito and we could see the lights of SanFrancisco and I kind of zoned out and my husband asked me if I was ok and I said without really thinking about it "I forgot how pretty SanFrancisco looks from here." and then we just stared at each other. You see I had never been to SF before.
Interesting wv- helditin
One of my favorite places is Italy, especially Venice. No matter where we were I couldn't get lost, I love it there.
Interesting post.
What an odd synchro, djan! With that word. Weird.
Connie – you may be right. I had an experience similar to yours when we went to sea world and were watching the what show. I got sick. We never went back. I think at some deep level I just couldn't stand seeing these beautiful creatures forced to do tricks.
Trish, you know sensitive folks inadvertantly absorb energies that are deeply embedded in people, places, and things. That's why psychometry works as well as it does. Holding a ring or toothbrush, whatever, used by someone, a sensitive person will be able to pick up all kinds of stuff about the owner of the object. I could be wrong, but my guess about you and Alcatraz is that you were bombarded by all the negative energies that are absorbed into the very landscape and soil and buildings of that
space and that are being emitted into the atmosphere there. When we first moved here, we went to a large chain grocery store over on U.S. 1. In the middle of the store I got deathly sick to my stomach and had to leave the store. After a few minutes, after we pulled out of the parking lot, I was fine. I thought it was just something going on in my own tummy. But next time we went there, the exact thing happened to me again. So, being the research freak I am, I went to the historical society in this, the Nation's oldest city, to see if anything interesting may have once been where that store was built. Turned out, it was on the exact spot where hundreds of yellow fever victims had been piled and burned eons ago! That store has been replaced by a new strip mall, but I still don't go there. The energies remaining from the past are very real and very "alive" there. Possibly your experience on the prison island may have been similar?? Just a thought. Whatever, they are NOT pleasant experiences! cj
Talk about synchronicities: I read this post and then went to read my usual funnies. Shoe has Alcatraz figuring prominently in it. How many years has it been since I've seen the word on the same day, and within an hour??
Paris! I had that good feeling in Arles.
I wonder if you will ever know exactly what it was you felt, but it's a spooky feeling. I've had it too, but right now I can't remember when. One good feeling was when I was in Paris and walked every day across the Tuilleries. I KNEW I had been there before…