An Ode to David Lynch
On Celebrating the Artistry of the Patron Saint of the Weird and Wholesome
Nosediving right back into our grief while still processing David Bowie— the overwhelming bittersweetness of Youthquake’s return is cosmic and heavily unexpected. Yet, this is the transcendence of time in which we should congregate the most to unify in the celestial and everlasting artwork and overall being that is David Lynch.
What a great time to be alive, if you love the theater of the absurd.
Sometimes, inexplicable things on this earth bewilder us no matter how much we try to decipher or question their mere existence for our simple comfort. Unearthing David Lynch’s world was like being simultaneously welcomed into Alice’s Wonderland and Dorothy Gale’s unconsciousness— this immense calling toward the eternally incomparable Lynch has felt entirely kismet throughout my life’s oscillation. An inner beckoning of relentless fascination and admiration for someone’s work; however, the Lynchian levels that have lavished a person’s life are perpetual. Rousing journeys of self-exploration and themes dripping with layered nuance, metaphysical elements, and surrealism— I felt completely at home and safe within the confines of the not-so-always glittering veneers. All part of the charm and more crucially, the grotesque appeal, as the joyous part of the eerie journey into Lynch’s reality of characters is slowing down while getting to know them and their orbiting world.
As a young girl in the nineties, I hadn’t realized I’d be caught within two worlds— one littered with naivety, conformity, and overbearing ideologies that never seem to favor women (even when becoming a grueling member of the respected establishment), or even despite the mighty forces they’ve raised and caused throughout religious history. The other continues to a freeing door into the secular welcoming the curious-raising and peculiar girl who asks questions— in which, the first world often suppresses and then sacrifices, only to sanctify her too late.
Cleverly hiding myself as the nervous wallflower behind a book, discovering the omnipresent David Lynch felt like being vulnerably seen by a nurturing and guiding hand through the facade while holding the door like a gentleman and welcoming those open hearts in. Alice and Dorothy were already such a boundless presence in my short life just a year before the swirling memories of the transfixion from watching Blue Velvet (1986) as a kid.
No surprise, that Blue Velvet was my Lynch film induction that I still nebulously recall as the vivid shots of blue are impossible to forget all those years ago. Rather than watching something more kid-friendly or assumed age-appropriate, my dad let us stay and watch or play quietly around until stated otherwise. Always presuming our attention was elsewhere, my parents never suspected the budding film lover they were forming. Harrowing and completely unsavory to a child watching, no matter how much my parents (especially my dad) tried to shield or censor us over the years— eventually to our detriment as we got older, but I digress. I’m convinced that such feminocentric canonicalization truly inspired and re-wired my brain, while Lynch was almost a guardian type of deity to help lift the veils of deceit.
Unsettling for most, watching as an observant child, it didn’t have that feeling of fear despite the clear female abjection. Rather, it seemed profoundly important that someone out there was showcasing a honeyed macabre you could feel as a young girl— an inexplicable juxtaposition of such lurking horror tucked beneath sweet simplicity. This art of story-telling and truth is that often reality can be sordid and a twisty fantasy. Not yet knowing what a Lynchian reality could be, all I knew was that whoever he was, he encapsulated women and the hidden stories that delve beyond the surface of judgment— never imagining how it’d relate to seeing the women in my life for the girls and women they simultaneously are.
Growing up in a hardworking proletariat family, times can often be tough with life’s fluctuations that can vary. Joy is throughout, although not always present. I’m adamantly grateful for being stubbornly precocious, even when I thought I’d completely suppressed my inner child. Starting with knowing how crucial and captivating film and TV were very young, it’s a love affair that has since expanded. Any television or film time was earned independently or shared as a family since we only had a wood grain box TV, so my parents would let us pick between whatever they chose to watch— or, deciding to go to our then TV-less rooms to do whatever. Always choosing to stay and watch with my dad, the bestowed pop culture valor was a bonding time I remember fondly with a growing penchant for horror and thrillers. Easily, the gravitational pull for my dad was imminent and I watched the salutatory rerun episodes of Twin Peaks on Bravo.
Despite the nebulous memories, I still remember how it was otherworldly. Although TP wasn’t my first introduction to these quaint sleepy towns masking the real insidiousness that America tends to camouflage. Menacing and violent deviation slink through the glossy normalcy that cloaks with the then-CBS Murder She Wrote and ABC’s Columbo. They were the other kitschy familial favorites I vividly remember always on my abuelo’s TV after walking home from school.
Though my dad’s always been an avid fan of True Crime not for the gore, but understanding and heeding one’s psyche— my dad’s curiosity for investigation continues. There are memories of my sisters and me watching Unsolved Mysteries and other criminal psychology-adjacent shows as he warned us of the possible dangers— especially of and by men. Perhaps his instilled immigrant paranoia was harsh, only to uncover his shrewdness as protection through perspective as time does. It instilled a lifelong lesson of listening to your intuition above all else. Not fully comprehending this until later in life, my immigrant father’s ever-present warnings of untrustworthy men in life were dire to his then-three girls about the cruel world and its self-imposed gloriana American repute.
I had no business watching Twin Peaks or Blue Velvet so young, at the impressionable age of eight with my dad. Yet, like Dorothy merely being introduced not too long before, the intertwined fate is inevitable— my world was turned right side up and technicolor, even in unforeseen unexpected inner turmoil or maladjustment later in life. As my mom and I had our own thing I never missed with cooking shows and the not-so-guilty pleasure that is Supermarket Sweep, no one could ever convince me to be away from my dad and what little bonding time we had away from work or helping his community as his not-yet-realized dream of building and rebuilding his mere boy’s daydream. Such an essential time with both was pivotally forming in retrospect.
Conversely, Twin Peaks had my youthful heart with its entire existence. Moreover, its atmospheric dread stayed on eleven as the apprehension was palpable. Perhaps, it’s most likely why I’ve always sensed a looming distrust of white suburbia and probably why the assumed banality never sat right with me. Or why I’ve been engrossed with the song Blue Velvet (a timeless classic, but a sidetrack— Lana Del Rey truly breathed a new into it back in 2012 via H&M eclipsing the original for me). As a kid, a more appropriate fascination and reminiscent encapsulation of something menacing behind white picket fences is Edward Scissorhands— a land of colorful niceties or pleasantries for social standings where masks are only encouraged for concealing a foreboding uneasiness to the unknown, such as an inky dark castle. The castle never seemed as terrifying as purported, but more of something fragile to be nurtured. The cookie cutters of Ballet De Suburbia (Suite) are seemingly far more chilling than whatever idyllic charm it pretended as they’re caught between the bromides of waking life and the programmed dreaminess of it all.
Initially reluctant and somewhat terrified, the more I watched, the more immersed I felt within this labyrinthian world. I knew it was scary, yet the intrigue of surrealism hiding behind figurative cul-de-sacs and narrative bus routes was so beautiful and tragic. Cosmic imperfections are all around us, and it’s in the art of connection through such destruction including patterns of allure or even subliminals that fall within life overall. Earnestness is the way, even in the most ugly— there’s still beauty.
Incredibly starkness of light and dark, waking and dreaming. A dichotomy that leads one to find the horrors within the mundane rather than the grotesque. This exploration of disparagement is an enduring theme of the darker sides of human nature that continue to denigrate within the underlying darkness in America. This is evident to most who are aware of its brutality as it’s strong in its convictions, and even tougher on its contradictions. America may have given up on having a Monarch, but not the need to bow down to power. When civilities matter most, we’re truly cooked as a country— except now, we’re drying up under the heat lamp thanks to deadlocking from supposed bipartisan political parties.
Dreadfully, the seedy underbelly Lynch once masterfully featured is now in plain sight and proudly aware. No longer hiding, it’s spilling into reality as a ghastly snowballing effect. The violence against women rolls further along as I went from a once discerning child to a now discerning woman holding dearly onto her inner child that deserves safety from the innate enabling of misogyny as the corporate and cultural rot continues without societal change.
This open season is the latest putrid incarnation that continues cyclically, worsening through the years. Over time, my repressed teenage angst met the bewilderment of my twenties leaving many contusions from confusion. Even more so is the embarrassing American subculture of pearl-clutching that’s rabidly aggressive in securing incomprehension and alienation into mass disenfranchisement— what’s beneath America’s constant bottomless craving for more? What about the hot dog and apple pie guise that tends to hide such sinister energy deeply inherent in America, the land of socially decaying landscapes?
Cosmically, finding a guardian angel like David Lynch throughout my life in slivers of moments I never knew I needed and completely devoured was a relief. Re-wiring my beguiled brain with a medicinal and magical elixir that’s a rush of granulated happiness and protection.
Welcoming this unexpected angel manifestation continues to be everpresent in my life and fantastically intertwined with Lynch’s work— even as I wear the beloved gold cherub pendant necklace my parents gifted me for Christmas after my baptism at twelve years old. Around this time, I was introduced to Paul Atreides’ story in Dune (1984) which has since stayed with me. Later, in high school, I more appropriately revisited Twin Peaks as my parent’s marriage dissolving around me like the aptly psychological blurring of time I’ve come to adore in his films. Fleeing to find solace in my established Lynchian reality, not knowing who to trust or myself yet, I first watched Eraserhead (1977) and Elephant Man (1980) because my then-boyfriend was also taken with Lynch’s work.
Then, there came the haunting Mulholland Drive (2001)— my official David Lynch big-screen watch and premiere in my lifetime, which was worth the trouble I got into for seeing this R-rated film instead of being at school. Never quite imagining the future as one does, Inland Empire (2006) was the final full-length feature to be released, by then I was managing as best as I could working and supporting myself while being a full-time caretaker. Naively unaware that life could reincarnate many times over in one lifetime and that rebirth is always a possibility.
Then came the final season of Twin Peaks (2017). Mental chaos, human identity, and soul searching weren’t just distressing themes of the past or mine. Recontextualizing, elucidation hits you where it truly hurts— emotional trauma and humanizing torment as life’s duality another acute theme as nature itself. Trauma is multidimensional and manifests in numerous ways— truly staying with you, always. Yet, love is far more powerful than fear or the trauma it inflicts, and feeding that hunger is the only thing that can help combat any darkness in our lives.
To lose love is like light and it’s only a problem when there’s an absence of it. Pure love asks for nothing back and it’s more like a sensation or a vibration, but unfortunately, most people don’t understand pure love. We tend to put the responsibility onto another person and that doesn’t work out too good. — David Lynch
Regardless of the time it takes to learn and adapt this loving lesson, Lynch’s essence is everlasting and transcendent to those open to it. Unless you’re prepared to deal with the possibility of uneasiness within and about— don’t lift that veil or the rock. Uncovering the world means also discovering another microcosm within. Nothing is as it appears— yet, it is.
Taking a reflective step back and in my evident year of writing less, I felt that long-awaited reboot from living on emotional autopilot had it not been for freeing myself from repressed and mixed-up emotions. Utilizing the aforementioned transcendental meditation and self-exploration of my shadow sides I’ve written about and previously avoided was the saving grace to unlocking any mental anguish I repressed that had since taken control.
The guardian of light and champion of women helped actualize the darkness of many merely with the celestial aura he carried, especially by women who may have seen themselves in the women he spotlighted. Lynch loved women, and every woman was a Goddess to him— a Diosa in all her havoc and glory, in which he adoringly and routinely captured the magic of onscreen— the heroines are the heart of his film and televised devotion.
It’s ineffable how a ribbon of dreams or television show, where any curiosities or oddities could feel inviting, enigmatic, and evocative. Even common. Whereas the ordinary could be uncanny, and vice versa. Unsettling and delightful, all feeling like a realm of endless possibilities, but most like home.
I will forever be grateful to have found a seraph among earthly men guiding me to recall being the heroine of my story in all its peaks and troughs, wearing the battered yet beating heart on my sleeve. Beaming with inner pride, but carrying that outwardly mysterious aura, I’ll eternally live in David Lynch’s weirdly wholesome world— which is, but a dream.
A figurative Polaris’ throughout my life and many others, David Lynch is the earthly deity that helped soothe the cold or unnerving world that often cruelly tricks. As twistedly as fate is, I’m only a tad grateful for Spielberg’s lieu of therapy wherein he gifted the world something beautifully parting in David Lynch’s final onscreen performance as John Ford in The Fabelmans. Lamently, parting is such sweet sorrow as the stars continue to look very different today— the cosmos are to refine the dazzling night sky to align the angel of light and darkness, deservingly making his way back home.
Con Amor,
Naomi x
Such a beautiful tribute!! My first David Lynch film was Eraserhead 🤍