I'll never manage to read 13 pages of threads so I'll just dive in with my own experience watching the finale.
I was very much ok with 17, with things I didn't like and others that confused me, but I felt a strange calm like I hadn't felt in months, perhaps years. It stemmed from the scene of Laura's bundle disappearing from the shore and Pete Martell fishing quietly. Before I dove into 18, I decided for a bathroom break.
I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror and felt at peace. No, seeing BOB did not even cross my mind until later. I walked slowly, as though I was carrying a precious object too fragile to shake. My mind and especially my emotions were in overdrive.
In April 2015 my Dad passed away. I'm still not over it and it just gets worse. I guess it's a common feeling, but I saw several of my friends go through it and then go on with their life, working, creating families. I don't have a life in that sense; I suffer from chronic depression and anxiety that crippled my emotional growth. (I take medications and I've been seeing professionals for all my adult life, but they are as clueless as I am.) While Dad was alive, I considered myself still a kid, a bit behind my peers but hopeful to pull myself together sometimes and turn my life around. Now I have to fight hard to scrounge a sliver of hope.
HOWEVER. I spent my childhood and adolescence in a tiny town among hills and woods. It wasn't all fun and games. BOB was always lurking somewhere. (Insert loose and unprofessional metaphor of BOB as depressive anxiety.) But it was my Twin Peaks, also filled with good people, lovely places and fine food. Dad always took me hiking, fishing, exploring. When I watched TP for the first time I was out of my teens, but I still recognized it deeply.
When Dad passed, I moved back from my city apartment, where I had tried and failed to make a life for myself, to my old house in the woods. It's a fairly orderly life but often bleak, caring for two active but elderly ladies (Mom and Aunt); I am practically head of the family, without the emotional resources to make decisions and take care of stuff.
Then came The Return, and watching Original TP again, returning to the world that had been so familiar in my youth. And yesterday, in front of the mirror, I realized I could go back. It was as easy as taking a hike beyond my garden fence and into the woods. Laura - young me, in feelings if not abusive experiences - was not dead anymore. We could go back and rediscover hopeful feelings, fight BOB together, help each other.
It was a realization at a psychological level, a sort of visual aid or guided dream towards healing. (I research such things, but I have so many concepts in my mind that I'm sure I'm not using the correct terms.) This would have been mystical in itself. But I also felt a resolution at a spiritual level. My religious affiliation is not important, but I felt I could imagine Twin Peaks as my Paradise Lost that could be found again in the end, "when the curtain falls", and this gave me a great feeling of peace. TP was real, therefore Heaven was real. In that moment I Believed, in what I don't know. I'm rambling, but it's really hard to describe.
Then I watched 18.
I know I have to watch the finale again, but for now 18 meant one thing to me: ok, mystical experiences and psychic healings and visions of Heaven are fine, but are not so easily achieved as it seemed at the end of 17. Going home is hard. Everything tends to reset. The fight goes on. Laura and I will have to find another way to fight BOB. (No, a fisticuff with Super Green Glove just did not do it for me, and I don't care about Judy, for me the enemy was always BOB.) I'm simultaneously scared and hopeful, because it's not just Laura and me now, it's us and Dale. What I desire most - what I hope to achieve by rewatching everything - is to come back to that moment when I realized TP was home beyond this world, where I could find Dad again and relive those moments of beauty and terror that were a staple of young me.
You're free to call ONE-ONE-NINE now.
I forgot to say that, perhaps for the first time, we hear clearly MIKE/Gerard's rhyme:
Through the darkness of future's past
The magician longs to see
One chants out between two worlds
"Fire walk with me".
It was pronounced very clearly, and the subtitles helped: it's "One chants out", not "One chance out". This rhyme enhanced my mystical experience. Who chants out? It might be me. Also, fire is not necessarily black fire. It could be the "eee-lec-tricity" which helped restore Dale to himself. In the spirit of what I wrote above, this has become a sort of prayer for me, in a way I can't explain. It calls back to that Twin Peaks of my youth which I long to see again.
I understand what you're saying. I'm sorry to hear you have struggled with depression; it's much more common than you might think.
I'm spiritual too, but not religious. I think my biggest disappointment with the end of TP was its seeming absence of hope. I don't believe that the future must necessarily be a repeat of the past or that heroic everyday efforts to make life better for ourselves and others are futile. Not one bit. Hope is the white light.
I also believe that your dad and all of our loved ones live on. I'm with the Log Lady on that. Death isn't the end, it's just transformation. You will see him again. And when you speak to him you are heard.
I'll never manage to read 13 pages of threads so I'll just dive in with my own experience watching the finale...
I get this. 🙂
I forgot to say that, perhaps for the first time, we hear clearly MIKE/Gerard's rhyme:
Through the darkness of future's past
The magician longs to see
One chants out between two worlds
"Fire walk with me".It was pronounced very clearly, and the subtitles helped: it's "One chants out", not "One chance out". This rhyme enhanced my mystical experience. Who chants out? It might be me. Also, fire is not necessarily black fire. It could be the "eee-lec-tricity" which helped restore Dale to himself. In the spirit of what I wrote above, this has become a sort of prayer for me, in a way I can't explain. It calls back to that Twin Peaks of my youth which I long to see again.
Very moving post. I know the problems of depression and feel for you. It's not for everyone but medical marijuana has helped me more then I can explain.
On another note....
I know Al Strobel (aka Mike...aka one armed man) and he told me years ago about the poem. It is for sure "chants".
He also told me that the poem wasn't in the script and Lynch wrote in on the spot for Al to say because he loved his voice and wanted to give him more lines.
I loved the story so much I named a song I wrote "One Chants Out" in its honor.
Wow, that is very profound and very intense. Your description of the impact on you is very heavy. Perhaps something can be gained/learned/accomplished from the realizations acquired by Part 18 and those learned/gained from Part 17 do not have to be forsaken.
This helps me better understand. Bob can be vanquished as we see in 17. But it has to be done carefully and without ego or one will fail and be doomed to repeat the past.
Do not give up hope. TP is always home beyond this world if you know where to look and are ready to find it. 🙂
P.s. I thought your thread was going to go in a completely different direction after I read the title. 😀 (sorry comedy break, it's how I deal with tension when things get to serious or heavy)
I understand what you're saying. I'm sorry to hear you have struggled with depression; it's much more common than you might think.
I'm spiritual too, but not religious. I think my biggest disappointment with the end of TP was its seeming absence of hope. I don't believe that the future must necessarily be a repeat of the past or that heroic everyday efforts to make life better for ourselves and others are futile. Not one bit. Hope is the white light.
I also believe that your dad and all of our loved ones live on. I'm with the Log Lady on that. Death isn't the end, it's just transformation. You will see him again. And when you speak to him you are heard.
Thanks, thes are very nice thoughts! I bet Dad would have rolled his eyes at The Return, but he would have also laughed, because his only child watches the darnedest things. 😀
I forgot to say that, perhaps for the first time, we hear clearly MIKE/Gerard's rhyme:
Through the darkness of future's past
The magician longs to see
One chants out between two worlds
"Fire walk with me".It was pronounced very clearly, and the subtitles helped: it's "One chants out", not "One chance out". This rhyme enhanced my mystical experience. Who chants out? It might be me. Also, fire is not necessarily black fire. It could be the "eee-lec-tricity" which helped restore Dale to himself. In the spirit of what I wrote above, this has become a sort of prayer for me, in a way I can't explain. It calls back to that Twin Peaks of my youth which I long to see again.
Very moving post. I know the problems of depression and feel for you. It's not for everyone but medical marijuana has helped me more then I can explain.
On another note....
I know Al Strobel (aka Mike...aka one armed man) and he told me years ago about the poem. It is for sure "chants".
He also told me that the poem wasn't in the script and Lynch wrote in on the spot for Al to say because he loved his voice and wanted to give him more lines.
I loved the story so much I named a song I wrote "One Chants Out" in its honor.
Eh, apart from the occasional reefer handed out by friends, I don't have the occasion to try marijuana, otherwise maybe I would: anything to chase the blues. It could be a destructive step closer to Laura, but I already employ booze... Right now I have been pinning some hopes for relaxation on a Tai Chi course I'm following.
It's amazing that you know Al Strobel! MIKE/Gerard is one of my favourites. I can believe Lynch liked his voice, it's so resonant and suggestive, especially reciting that rhyme. If you hear from him, please send congratulations from a fan. 😀
Wow, that is very profound and very intense. Your description of the impact on you is very heavy. Perhaps something can be gained/learned/accomplished from the realizations acquired by Part 18 and those learned/gained from Part 17 do not have to be forsaken.
This helps me better understand. Bob can be vanquished as we see in 17. But it has to be done carefully and without ego or one will fail and be doomed to repeat the past.
Do not give up hope. TP is always home beyond this world if you know where to look and are ready to find it. 🙂
P.s. I thought your thread was going to go in a completely different direction after I read the title. 😀 (sorry comedy break, it's how I deal with tension when things get to serious or heavy)
LOL, yeah, I debated the title with myself for a while, but that's exactly how it went. I wonder what would have happened if I'd gone on straight to 18. A different experience, I'm sure; the joy I felt would not have been so pure. But I'll hold it safe in my memory, along with your thoughts!
Hang onto the feeling of relief that your experience provided you. Even if it was a fleeting feeling it is still inside you, and you can reconnect with it. That is the hope you can use to brighten the darker moments.
It can be extremely exhausting caring for elderly family. Yet, it is a noble endeavor to assist them. I was touched by your honesty, and I wish you the strength to fight your demon. I too lost my father, and am caring for my mother. My situation is ok right now, but it can easily lose balance. I think the Tai Chi is an excellent way to exercise your physical being while providing focus and clarity to your mind. I do yoga, which serves the same purpose. Don't give up. : )
Fire walk with