Open Letter to the Isla Vista Dome House & Its Former Guardians

Driving past Dome last night, seeing the lights on, my reaction was a giddy one: Who will I find pacing the spaceship? Who is awake and stirring in that colorful orb? Who might be spiraling its staircase? Ah, the staircase. After a tumultuous and creaky relationship, we finally reached a place of understanding during move-out. That place? Unadulterated hatred. Damn the stairs, damn its clumsy spiral, damn it to hell, even as I wish to stumble up its darkened steps one more time. And let's say I went for it – made it inside, through the living room, up stairs. How disappointing that there would be no you to find inside!

Perhaps it will please you to know that the beer die table is absent from the yard (though could it be hiding in the back?). It seems your masterpiece of junk and debris (a sincere compliment) pushed a frazzled Peter to enforce stricter rules about yard maintenance. The yard is spotless, like something out of a catalogue. 

 

I never learned or simply cannot remember why Peter refused to extend the lease, but I like to think it is because you made Dome into too much of a home. Dome was such an undeniable home, a beacon of stability in the midst of IV's transient sea of slime. To someone like Peter, who is one of those special humans built – and I mean tailor-made – for a lifetime of petty tyranny, of the methodical throttling of joy, this was obscene and impermissible, borderline hazardous.

 

Of course, according to this theory, the blame rests partly with you for getting too damn comfortable. God forbid anyone get comfortable on this earth! Whomp, out you went. 

 

I also like to think the reason passersby delighted in ogling Dome's geometry – beyond its irregularity – was a dim but lasting recognition of the sturdy, happy spirit emanating from its core. Anyone who passed its threshold had the opportunity, no matter how worthy, to feel the relief of home. I imagine this is why people like myself, despite not living there – never officially, at least – were quick to claim it as a place of refuge.

 

The legacy of your time there will linger on until it is stomped out by time, by change, possibly by beer die, until Dome itself is stomped out, dismantled. and then what will be left of this accidental rapture? Us and then nothing but whose gotten that far.