It's Been Ten Years, or So I'm Told
I didn't discover Gravity Falls until 2020s. But when I did, it captivated me. Here is a re-posting of an essay I wrote about the whole adventure, in honor of the tenth anniversary of the conclusion of our adventures in that little town in the middle of the woods in Oregon. Here is an excerpt from the post--
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
...I have only recently discovered Gravity Falls. However, it has quickly come to mean a lot to me. I’m fifty-eight as of this writing. My childhood was filled with abuse, ostracism, trauma, and loneliness- not unlike the experience of many others, I have no doubt. My safe spaces were few and far between when I was a child, especially when I was Dipper’s and Mabels’ age in the story. Gravity Falls reminds me of those too brief summers I spent with my grandparents at their little dacha in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey.
We had a little cottage, no more than six or seven hundred square feet in area. It had been built by my grandfather and his brothers, with their father. Back then, when I was Dipper’s age, and younger, it was heavily forested. The roads were unpaved, and the little homes there were few and far between. Even now, I can still remember the smell of the place—sandy, acidic soil…dwarf pine…scrub oak…laurel and holly…wild blueberries and blackberries …woods that seemed to go on for miles and miles all around. There was a lake of cedar water- the iced-tea color was due to the high iron content, leeched from the soil. My grandparents swore that it had medicinal properties and was good to soak in.
Those summers were good. I spent seemingly endless days walking through the forest, looking for paths, seeing where they led…swimming…fishing…bird watching…hunting toads and frogs…picking wild blueberries in the forest….It was all wonderfully removed from the world I was forced to inhabit the rest of the time.
When I was twenty-five, I found my own Wendy. We became fast friends. And despite a twelve-year difference in age, we fell into a brief but intense affair, which for many reasons, did not last. She is long gone, now. But to this day, there are still echos of her in my (you should pardon the expression) soul. (Anyone interested in that story, feel free to pick up a copy of my memoir.)
The Wendy-Dipper relationship arc as Hirsch wrote it resonates with me on a deeply personal level. Which is why I have been drawn to the Wendip fantasies. Even though today I understand all the whys and wherefores, even though I learned to accept that things could not be as I wished them to be, that things could never work out for me with my own Wendy the way I might have wanted– there has still never been anyone but her. I’m an old man, now. I thought I had moved on. But the Wendy-Dipper arc still touches me.
And Gravity Falls brought back so many of those memories. And as I watched, I couldn’t help but feel as though I missed something all those years ago– I think I would have liked to have had a twin like Mabel. I really needed a friend like Wendy. I would have enjoyed knocking around with a brotherly sidekick like Soos. I could have used teachers like Stan and Ford. I wish I had appreciated my home in the deep pine forest more than I did at the time. But, like Gravity Falls itself, my summer ended many years ago.
Oh, what I wouldn’t give now for just one more summer. What I wouldn’t give to be together with such friends. This simple cartoon show managed to trigger quite painful feelings of anemoia within me. Or, if not nostalgia for a past that never was, a past that was almost mine…and should have been mine. I honestly don’t know if I should love Alex Hirsch or hate him....
