Saturday, January 2, 2016

The Horse and the Hen

The one where I took an acid trip on a catbus to Norfolk.

So what's it like being in the Barr house? ​A snapshot:​

It's like a 39-hour psychedelic trip through a house of 9x9 mirrors, each differently formed by the same canon of literature and music and TV shows and sports teams and art supplies and animals, and everyone is lovely and loved, which is true everywhere all the time but some places are closer to reality than others and this is a place for peak experiences. You haven't seen any clocks in the house but the passage of time is indicated by the chalkboards, blank when you arrived, starting to crawl with new magic more squiggles and new doodles, by the disappearance of food and drinks, and the depletion of wakefulness. You see yourself and everyone/thing in every possible dizzying permutation of those 81 reflectors and you're a spider trying to run along every segment of the web as quickly as you can take in as much recon to situate yourself.

To freeze everyone in time, a snapshot of the always moving everything at once, there is naturally huge inertia to overcome. What can a family photo​ say about the Barr household? A lot. You've seen some of these pictures before. They took a lot of energy​ and coordination and ongoing sanctification to capture​. They say a lot​,​ ​but Barr house says more.​ (​You ​really ​had to have been there​ as they say.)​ Here is what the house says: Welcome​, stay. So you ​drift​ in.

D moves and materializes from room to room all self-contained and you never know when your out-of-body float will bump into him or he into you and he says "Hi, I'm D. Now your gallery is complete. Thanks for helping complete my puzzle too." J, mini-AMBB off to college with friendmaking and fomo in the heart, blows you kisses and shares magnificent freshman bucket lists and says "I want to see you see your sunrise no matter how cloudy it is." And L sends you telepathic beckonings "I see you, I see everything, come where you wanna be and heal." and lands you in the midst of your spirit animals. While S firecracker middle child pulls a logistical miracle out of her hat and says "Great! I get to be the hero for sneaking you down. I love this plan." Then when she returns from her latest affliction she lavishes heaping servings of verbal affirmations so generous and random and abruptly sincere that she might be the first person to ever have shut you down with praise. and Joel says "You're here. I'm cool and you're alright with me" while saying nothing at all. And A has a silly big brother mocker smile that says "I am amused and I'm not telling you why. I have lots of thoughts AND a polite filter... for now." AMBB says I've been trying to admit you to the greatest show on earth for all the years we've been friends I like sharing my treasures and I'm so glad it finally happened but not in the way I thought it would and the show must go on, and J&B say "So, how are we? And how are you? Now you know."

Indeed you do know. If you ever want to know anything at all, such as whether you could/should persist in your alchemical angsty long distance relationship, or the meaning of life, or what is the best arrangement of cars and people to get from point A to D toll-free with an ATM along the way, or the chief end of man, you just take yourself and that thing to the Barr house, and let everybody move about around it, react to it, not react to it, while you watch and feel and react, and then you'll know. Like tripping on acid, it can be a rough ride and wildly disorienting crazy fun but in the comedown, everything is understood and you went all the way around the world, your 4th circumnavigation but this time you never even left home.

What is it like on an acid trip?




S: We finished it in your honor

E: By we do you mean you, the royalest we? Its beautiful! Thanks hahah. Its like my angsty holiday hues turn into easter as you move outward

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