I love a good party.
My affection for parties goes back – way back. Not, as might be imagined, to high school or thereabouts, but to a time when I was seven or eight, when I discovered a Dr. Seuss Beginner Book by P. D. Eastman called Go, Dog. Go!
In the book, an assortment of brightly colored dogs of various breeds and sizes engages in the kind of whimsical activities designed to show young readers what a big, surprising place the world is. In one illustration the dogs race about in go carts; in another they negotiate a giant hedge maze; in another a pair of them plays tennis atop a zeppelin.
Fun as these activities look, they are all only build-ups to the one that concludes the book: A massive party at the top of a giant tree sitting out in the middle of a vast empty plain. The dogs – outfitted in caps, scarves, and racing goggles – all zoom out to this tree in their cars, and then climb up a ladder leading into its upper branches.
There they encounter a scene that renders all the fun that has happened before pale by comparison. At the center of the tree, a giant pink cake is cut up. All around it, dozens of dogs of every description can be seen, madly disporting themselves. “What a dog party!” the text exclaims. And indeed, it’s clear that this is the party to end all parties.
In the pages leading up to this giant party, a pink poodle and a yellow dog that looks something like a beagle meet up several times. Each time they do, the poodle asks the beagle what he thinks of the hat she is wearing. Each time, the beagle’s reply is the same: He doesn’t like her hat.
But when the poodle and beagle meet up at the big party in the tree, it’s a different story.
“Hello again,” says the pink poodle. “And now,” she says, pointing to a new, super-crazy hat featuring a candy cane, a mop, a fishing pole and all kinds of other nonsensical items, “do you like my hat?”
“I do,” says the beagle. “What a hat! I like it! I like that party hat!”
I read Go, Dog. Go! fairly obsessively as a child, and the image of that fantastic party-to-end-all parties at the top of the giant tree lodged itself deep in my head. Years later, when I learned that peoples from all over the world from pre-history onward have seen the universe as a giant tree (the axis mundi, as it’s called), that big tree at the end of Go, Dog. Go! immediately came to mind. When I learned that many religions envision the afterlife as a kind of endless feast that takes place in the upper branches of the axis mundi, Go, Dog. Go! was once again the first thing I thought of. There’s something strangely universal about the book’s kooky optimism – its sense that, whatever happens down here in the endlessly complex and confusing Dr. Seuss book of life, on a higher level everything really does ultimately work out for the best. Clearly, Go, Dog. Go! is one of those mysterious children’s books that’s about more – a whole lot more – than it seems to be.
And one of the things it’s about – for me at least – is drinking.
Every party I ever went to in high school and college – or at least every really fun one – was, for me, a return to the branches of that crazy dog tree. I’d look around at all the people crowded together and realize that this was the way the world really was supposed to be. At a good party, all the ordinary borders and barriers that made life such a tiresome place broke down. Everybody talked to everybody, and said things you’d never imagined they would say. Anything could happen. Everything was possible. No matter how dull and difficult human interaction might be in the ordinary world (“No, I do not like your hat.”), at a good party everything was different. Everything worked out well at last (“I like that party hat!”).
Of course, all those parties – every last one of them – eventually came to an end (I know, because I was usually the last to leave them). And unlike the party in Go, Dog. Go!, they didn’t always come to a particularly good one either. Not only that but the dead and dull world I’d escaped from for a moment ground right back into action the next day. The old borders and barriers, the tired old rules and regulations, all fell right back into place.
Every now and then these days – usually when reading Go, Dog. Go! to a young relative – I’ll revisit that giant tree where everybody meets and all things work out.
Every time I do, it still works that strange old magic on me. Ordinary life – at least MY ordinary life – is still a frustrating event a lot of the time. That giant tree where everything works out, the fun never stops, and everyone is in accord with everyone else, still seems like a pretty good place.
And to tell the truth, I haven’t lost my faith that – in some way that I’m not up to describing or even fully understanding – it really exists. For me in sobriety, the last word about life and where it’s going, ultimately, still belongs to the pink poodle and the yellow beagle.
“Do you like my hat?”
“I do. What a hat! I like that party hat!”