Dante's Inferno and my 1997 TV!

So it appears that my time spent hiding out in hell will soon be over. I think I wanna pour my heart out now and document this stuff for posterity.

So something like four months ago I felt as if my world had finally collapsed in on itself. And I guess in a way it did. Adjusting was hard enough, but then I somehow surrendered myself to the family home in the amazingly small and rural home town. I know others have done it, and it's not the most pathetic thing in the world. Damn is it unhealthy and a breath of fresh air at the same time. Unhealthy because my social life went straight down the toilet. Sure I got out from time to time, got drunk a few times even, but the level of comfort and communication with others that I enjoyed in Minneapolis was lacking. It's not that there isn't people I can connect with down here, it's just I've been away from them for so long I barely recognize or even feel at home in their worlds. And I fear that is happening with all of my seperate groups of friends, the Explorer bunch up in Minneapolis, the MCAD bunch that are strung all over the nation, the Worlds of Fun Bunch here in KC. I've been the ramblin' man for so long I haven't developed any real strong roots that keep me tied down. And now this road weary wanderer is feeling a bit lonely while everyone else seems to have this niche they fit into perfectly.

It is also a like standing in a very sharp gust of wind, things are happening around me, spiraling along their fractal helix paths. Particles of existence bumping along randomly, but also with some sort of intelligent purpose. My brother dealing with being a newlywed and already having problems with his spouse. My mother figuring out her life. My dad feeling as if he's a failure, contemplating suicide. Friends bouncing along in their own little lives. My grandfather having dizzy spells that leave him immobile in the yard as he's fetching the paper, and then after he recovers he freaks out about being blind in one eye, forgetting it's been that way for three years now. My grandmother living for TV and birdwatching out the kitchen window. The salesman, the dentist, the alley cat, the cute girl at Subway, my six year old XBOX playing friend, Austin, who thinks I'm the "best person he knows at this game", the road raging asshole on I-70, all of these individual particles, these lives, these bits of conciousness all seem connected. I stepped away from my life and just examined life at large for awhile down here. Got back in touch with my family and oldest friends. It confused the hell out of me at first, how complex it all is, how all of this was coexisting alongside my own chaos. How the Christian god my Grandparents believe in, is somewhere in the mix with the Quantum Strangeness and the loose knit philosophy I follow. How every single beacon of light that we as humans find to cling on to is exactly the same as the pins and needles that keep us at bay.

For the most part I don't even care about the "How's", the "Why's" occupy enough of my wandering mind as it is. Often a general, "What the fuck is the point?" will wash over and I'll just resign to go to bed. Forever retiring the axioms of the naturalistic paradigm to my subconcious slumber. Other times I'll just sit and watch my television set that only plays programming from the end of 1996 and the beginning of 1997.

So yeah, I live in my grandparents basement at the moment, amongst my dad's crazy complex abstract art sculptures, his piles of sci-fi and meta-physical books, a television set that gets no reception, a vcr and a stack of VHS tapes of random programming from the mid/late 90's, including nightly news, tv commercials, Tonight Show, L.A. Law, Fraiser, and my favorite, Northern Exposure. This little slice of life, a chapter in my biography, will soon be closing and I'll be back up in the Twin Cities amongst friends.

As I climb back out of this period, I can only think of one suitable closing.

Down there, beginning at the further bound
of Belzebub's dim tomb, there is a space
not known by sight, but only by the sound

of a little stream descending through the hollow
it has eroded from the massive stone
in its endlessly entwining lazy flow."

My Guide and I crossed over and began
to mount that little known and lightless road
to ascend into the shining world again.

He first, I second, without thought of rest
we climbed the dark until we reached the point
where a round opening brought in sight the blest

and beauteous shining of the heavenly cars.
And we walked out once more beneath the Stars.
-The Inferno-
Dante Alighieri
(John Ciardi Translation)

Take Care!
Mark