MY Infinite Summer.
I’m participating in this online book-clubbish thing called Infinite Summer where the basic idea is to read Infinite Jest – the entire 948 page book – between June 21st and September 22nd. This means that the actual literal summer has been and will be consumed by this book.
I’ve been at it since June 21st with a few stops and starts. The first 200 pages of this book are notoriously difficult to get through, and it didn’t help that I left the book in Pennsylvania on a road trip around page 95, forcing me to take a breather while I waited for it to be returned. That also gave me time to lose my wits, and it took me more than a week and half after getting it back to convince myself it would be worth it to begin again. I did, finally, and as soon as I hit page 201 I was in full blown ecstatic and unadulterated love with this book.
I have hardly been able to put it down since.
However, it only takes a quick glance at the Infinite Summer website to see that there are other people participating in Infinite Summer that aren’t having as joyous a time of it. I can see why that would be the case. The plot is far from linear. In fact, there is very little at this point (page 575 for me) that has revealed itself as actual standard plot at all. I just passed end note 238 of many, many more. There are as many characters as an old Chinese play (read: a TON). I can hardly keep the names straight. Time is fractured in the book, and very difficult to keep track of unless you are taking notes along the way. It really requires that or constant flipping back to other sections to see where things stand in relation to each other.
I can’t honestly tell you that I haven’t been annoyed or perturbed at these things from time to time. I have had my sour moments, but I have realized that even those moments are part of what I love about my experience of this book.
Let me try to put it succinctly (as succinctly as I am able, at least): I love Infinite Jest because it contains a world that is more human and alive than most of the rest of my life right now. I have found that reading it is like looking in a mirror and seeing my bleeding and raw heart fractured and divided between the many characters in the book. The world it portrays is more human than even I am most of the time, I think.
You see, I have been living in a world that seems to ignore everything but the mind. It doesn’t take into account or even allow for Kate Gompert-esque feelings of depression, the looming possibility and potential of addiction that seems to be on every side in our culture, or the fact that people die often and more people than any of us are inclined to admit are disabled and these are real parts of real life that can’t just be covered up or talked away or analyzed into submission. I am normally inclined to blame this world on stuff that is outside of me: school, culture, etc. I think, though, that I’m coming to see that its me that has created this world for me. I have understood the reality of those things listed above many times before now, but I haven’t really let myself stop to let them be my reality, even when they are my reality. I have held my breath, waiting for them to pass, to get back to normal whatever that is. But now I see that those things – and my feelings about them – are normal.
All this comes about because I have taken a few hits to my heart and a few hits to my life this year, and instead of running from it all for the first time in my life I’m trying to face it down. Its hard though, and I am thankful that I have these crazy, addicted, broken and messed up characters to come home to day after day. In them I have found companionship and through that companionship I have started finding the strength and ability to hold the threads of my mind and soul together in moments where they would surely be more unraveled otherwise.
In writing these things I know I am simplifying one of the most complex books on the market right now. There is so much depth and so much to be thought about in regards to this book. But I’m not reading it to think about it this time around. I am reading it to feel it and to see what it feels out in me. There is much that it contains that should be (and is on other blogs and at the Infsum website) intellectually analyzed and bantered about. But honestly, I don’t care that I don’t know what is happening in the book. I don’t care that I don’t know where it is going to end. I don’t even care that I’m not trying to figure it out. My Infinite Summer wasn’t started as, nor has it turned into a quest to understand. Rather is more of a lesson in being human and being free to feel whatever it is I need to feel. Uncovering and learning to respect my own humanity was what I wanted my summer to be about from the beginning, and I am so glad that IJ popped up to assist me through it.
I’m content leaving the in-depth analysis to those with the time and the brain energy for it. In the mean time I’ll weep out loud and laugh out loud alternately, unashamedly, and consistently until September 22nd.
Summer Musings
I have been going through a few big changes in my life the past few months. I have been forced to face down fears regarding people leaving and the landscape of life changing and even getting older (yes, I know – I’m barely grown up, but I’m still “getting older”). There have been fast changes, harsh changes, heavy changes and happy changes. I have faced them all and lived to tell about it.
Many (MANY) of my friends have gotten jobs, gotten married, moved away, moved on. My metabolism has slowed a bit. My need for steadiness and rhythm in the pattern of my life has increased. My energy level is pretty high, but finicky sometimes – a sort of finicky that is new to me. I have given up baseball in lieu of the steroid mess and decided the only athlete I will really believe in will be myself from now on. For some people these might sound small but for me they are life-shaking.
For years I have been trying to chase away a truth that this summer has convinced me cannot be chased away: everything changes, and a lot of times that change hurts. There have been many moments where I have come face to face with my humanity, my own frailty and the brevity that is my life in ways more deep and profound than ever before. So much so that I have found myself weeping in the oddest of moments: passing car crashes on the highway, seeing MJ’s kids for the first time, watching this video, hearing the news of Walter Kronkite’s death.
I feel like it just hit me for the very first time: life is short, and the only constant in it will be myself and the choices that I make. Everything else is liable to be carried away on a wind that I wasn’t anticipating on a day when I wasn’t expecting it. Because of this I have been doing my darndest to listen to myself more, despite all the noise that try to crowd me out. I have been finding simple satisfaction in meeting my own needs. Unlike with many other things in my life I have fought to see the big picture with this one. Thus I am trying to be kind to myself when I get discouraged. I am trying to show up even when I am afraid. I am trying to be consistent even when my emotions are hell bent on tossing my life off track.
These are revolutionary attempts for me, and I truly hope that despite their feeble size they will help me be an anchor for myself especially given the changing nature of this life.
Summer in madtown
The Bus.
Everything I need to know about living a full life, I have learned from guys on the bus. Its a funny thing to realize, but it is true for me. Haphazard conversations have provided me with abounding amounts of humor, wisdom and insight.
Here are some of the things I have learned: Stay in school, work hard, don’t be afraid to dream, take lots of picutres, laugh at cartoons, don’t be ashamed to cry for your loved ones when they die, do what you love, be respectful, life isn’t always fair but it is good, don’t have kids too soon, be careful who you sleep with, and make sure you always have your bus pass with you.
These conversations are rich, even when they are short and even when they are uncomfortable. They are valuable every time. No matter how much I learn about others and where they are from I feel like I always walk away with a thousand tidbits of wisdom for myself. I swear: guys on the bus can see into my soul. There have been a few that have guessed things about me that are eerily correct, and others that have been way off. I’m grateful for every one of them, though.
I could write a whole book just about guys I have met on the bus. It makes me wonder why the women always stay silent. Maybe it is something about me, or maybe it is that they generally don’t have the cocky confidence that says what they say is valuable no matter what it is.
It feels like I am a magnet for old guys that just like to hear themselves talk. Its okay with me, because I love to hear them talk. Each one is a snapshot burned into my brain, and I never want to forget a single one. I don’t want to forget their faces, their tears, their stories or their smiles. I don’t want to forget what they’ve given me: confidence, resolve, affirmation, insight, wisdom, and a reminder that people are beautiful, and they never stop being beautiful, even when they are a mess.
