David's Inferno (31 page)

I've always been good—some might say too good—at identifying with plants, animals, and inanimate objects. In any event, looking at that multi-trunked tree, freed at last from its crown of thorns, gave me a feeling bordering on freedom … release. I hadn't felt that way in a long time.

I learned later that the tree I liberated was a Japanese Bayberry, which is also considered an invasive. But, I don't worry so much about things like that anymore … even though it sure seems like there are a lot of berries on the thing … even though a few small seedlings appeared last year in the middle of a cluster of ferns 100 yards away. I just dig them up before they get out of hand.

Project #4: The Septic Tank. Yes, the Septic Tank. November, 2006
. Every old house has its rituals. You learn them one by one. When to get the chimney cleaned. How to install the idiosyncratic storm windows on the screened-in porch. Which pipes lead where and—most important—where the shutoff valves are. If you have a septic tank, where it is and how often to get it pumped out.

Setting a series of heavy stones in place to make a walkway that didn't quite lead where I wanted it to go gave me pause.

Building a footbridge from the house to the cabin—connecting a narrow stream but wide psychological divide—gave me hope that one day I would get to the other side.

Digging down deep to get out all the roots of an allegedly invasive and definitely thorny bush, reminded me it wasn't easy to get free—but that it was possible.

The symbolism of having our septic tank pumped, however, simply made me smile. Still makes me smile.

I knew where our septic tank was—at least I had found a treasure-type map with obscure symbols and bad spelling. But, six years in, I still hadn't had it pumped. And November 2006 was the
perfect time. I wasn't doing a whole lot to contribute to our little family's health and welfare. And, while I wasn't sure that having the septic tank pumped would necessarily endear me to Wendy, I knew that by then she (and I) appreciated any gesture at normalcy.

This is how to get your septic tank pumped: (1) Call septic tank guy. (2) Make appointment. (3) Find septic tank. (4) Dig gently until the top is exposed. (5) Wait for septic guy to show up.

Five steps that anyone old enough to pick up a phone and a shovel should easily be able to do.

It
wasn't
easy. Not for me. Steps #1 & #2 were the hardest. Primarily, because I had to speak coherently on the phone
and
commit to being home and functional on a specific day at a specific time—ready to deal in a grownup way with a total stranger who was holding a rather large hose with a rather large diameter that could suck up everything within reach.

Having dodged the appointment bullets, I had to bite the next two: find it and dig. Frankly, I didn't know what to expect. I went online (seriously!) I wanted to get an idea of how deep it might be … what diameter … how you actually got the top off … questions that, really, you don't need to know to expose the top of a septic tank.

Imagine my euphoria when I finally hit pay dirt … actually, pay cement! Imagine my pride when the guy with the big hose came and I was able to show him the top, exposed for all to see. Imagine the relief I felt when I confessed I couldn't get the top off, and he said no problem—that was his job!—at which point he materialized a special long, hooked, iron rod designed specifically for this purpose. Imagine the thrill of standing there shooting the breeze, and then some, with this consummate professional; calmly asking obsessively detailed questions about sewage:

“So, how often …?” “What's the deal …?” “What's that for …?” And, “What's the worst …”

I'm going to spare you the answers … okay, fine, the answers are:

(1) Depends how many teenagers live in the house, (2) Whether you're grandfathered, (3) Gray water, and (4) Dental floss.

At the top of Mount Purgatory, after ridiculing the stammering and stuttering Dante for being so clueless, Beatrice takes pity on him and lets an ethereal woman named Matelda bathe him in the River Lethe in order to erase the memories of his sinful life. (More on that later!)

Similarly, as I, stammering and stuttering, thanked the septic guy and watched him drive away, my irreverent inner adult looked at my manic inner child and suggested, with a devilish grin, that we too had been cleansed.

To take serious liberties with Dante's last lines of
Purgatory:
“I returned from this most holy of waters regenerated, just as trees are renewed with new foliage after harshest of winters, more than ready and willing to mount unto the stars.”

Life wasn't going to get much easier for a while, but my sense of humor was recovering.

F
OR
D
ANTE, EVEN THE
G
ARDEN OF
E
DEN IS IN
P
URGATORY
 … a place where you have to pay some final dues before being allowed into Paradise. It's here that Dante finally sees Beatrice. Instead of the rapturous reunion he's been dreaming of all these years, she puts the hammer down. She insists that he admit that he's guilty of all kinds of sins and random idiocies—particularly the fact that back when they were mere children, he mistook his puppy-love fantasies of her earthly flesh for the radiance of God. She also explains that the only reason she went to the trouble of sending Virgil down to get him was a touch of pity and, more important, that one of her jobs was to reveal The Truth to some half-decent poet so he could go back and share the good (and bad) news with the rest of humanity.

After a while, you wish he'd tell her to, well, shut up! Since when did beings of pure light become such nags? Enough already! But no, Dante just takes it as pitifully as an adolescent who's been caught by his dream girl satisfying his more carnal desires with a girl “on the wrong side of the tracks.” He keeps groveling. And not just for one purgative scene. But for canto after canto. Even into Paradise where he simply trades in guilt for self-deprecation.

Oddly, back here on earth, this is the period when Dante begins to act a little more empowered. He's around 50 years old. Still in exile. Still wandering the roads of Italy, following the path of his own private purgatory. While usually less than 100 miles from Florence, he remains a world apart.

But, then he gets a message from back home. The City Fathers say he can return. But there are two catches. One, he has to pay a large fine. More significantly, he has to admit he was wrong. He refuses.

Here's a guy who walked stooped over on the First Terrace of Purgatory in solidarity with people guilty of the sin of Pride, but he still has too much pride to make a simple apology?

Actually, you couldn't pay him enough to go back to Florence, let alone have him pay you. And as for being wrong, those people don't have a clue what it
really
means to confess. Plus, Dante's no fool. He knows now that his reputation is growing, the Florentines want to claim him for their own. Even after he dies, they spend years trying to get their hands on his remains.

To paraphrase Elvis Costello, Dante would have been disgusted. Now he's just amused. He doesn't have time for this any more. He's no longer dreaming about going back. He's dreaming about going
forward
.

But before Beatrice is willing to escort him into Paradise, he has to drink from the waters of the rivers Lethe and Eunoe. The first, as we just mentioned, washes away all his recollections of his sin. The second firmly implants the memories of how good he's been (which might imply that you have to be in total denial to get into Heaven).

How can you write about things you don't remember? This conundrum has vaguely troubled Dantean scholars for many years. Some point out that Beatrice was really just saying he had to forget his
own
sins—to hold firmly to his own goodness in order to have the clarity and stamina to rake everyone else across the coals. Others suggest that since his memory was good and he was allowed to hold onto his strengths, he can remember his memories … an argument that, if nothing else, explains why I wasn't cut out for academia.

All I
can
say is that after major cataclysms—whether inner or outer—you are literally no longer the same person. Many aspects of yourself—fears, troubling memories, resentments; all those little things that you feel have been tucked away, holding you back, making life more difficult in so many different ways—have been dislodged. This is your opportunity to let those “sins” go, while setting more firmly the foundations of your life going forward.

It would be nice to think that a quick dip in two rivers would
take care of all this. I suppose, in the case of “spontaneous enlightenments,” that may happen. But I daresay for most of us it's an ongoing process. We may only have a few “major cataclysms” in our lives, but we always have opportunities to acknowledge, embrace, or make light of our thousands of unnecessary sufferings. In other words, ours is not one long descent into Hell and another long climb up Mount Purgatory. Rather, we go a few steps forward and then some back. Admittedly, for many people, there seems to come a time when they just hunker down for the duration. But, whether for the first 10 or first 100 years, for just one or many lifetimes, our pilgrim's progress is an incremental process as we slowly get lighter and lighter, clearer and clearer.