As a child, my dreams often took me to video arcades and adolescent hangout dives that existed solely in the neon-bathed ethereal plane of my imagination.
These were places that could not exist anywhere else. They seemed to manifest out of nowhere in the middle of an otherwise vacant urban nightscape, and their rooms and hallways would continue to unfold and expand as I explored them, as though the walls themselves were shapeshifting around me as I moved; endless corridors of arcade cabinets and pinball machines glowing unnaturally under unseen black lights, leading me to shopping mall fountains-turned-indoor swimming pools, fast food restaurants that doubled as miniature golf courses, and theme parks of infinite possibilities.
Together and individually, these joints comprised a world I wanted more than anything—a world made up entirely of my peers delighting in all of the things that mattered most to me. Kids patronized these places, ate pizza and drank soda and smoked cigarettes in them, selected the music that played in them, owned and managed them (presumably; origins and ownership were never subjects of much concern during these nocturnal visits).
This all came back to me as I stepped tentatively, then feverishly, through the House of Eternal Return, an immersive art installation/playground/mind fuck constructed inside the shell of an old Santa Fe bowling alley by a collective of (relatively) young artists that goes by the name Meow Wolf. By design, walls and doorways gave way to winding paths and secret nooks, the light of household incandescent lamps faded and bled into fluorescent forests, all while I tried desperately to balance conflicting urges to pore over every surface and object and simultaneously race through the place until I had canvased every corner.
The turn that finally submerged me fully in this living dream came about twenty minutes into my self-guided tour when I rounded a corner and confronted the entrance of an arcade; fully realized, packed with kids, existing just to exist in the way the places in my childhood dreams would defy all rational logic—even an adolescent’s version of rational logic—in the spirit of absolute indulgence.
So potent was this particular nostalgia that I had to fight back tears, a dynamic I would experience multiple times as I made my way through the House of Eternal Return’s netherworld. Meow Wolf has received many accolades for its work in Santa Fe, and expectations are high for its next endeavors, but for me this will always be its signature accomplishment—returning me to a place I’ve both never been and never left.
