The Sand That Holds the Lakes in Place

"if you get there before i do
tell my friends i'm coming too"

Dying is what we do. From the moment we're born, sloughing off cells, filtering toxins from the environment, matador-dancing with random collisions & weather systems, blood clots & bullets, brain chemicals & social pressures that leave us choking slowly on a noose of alcohol & drugs.  Most of the time we're like the Roadrunner--so caught up in the rush we don't see the tunnel is just paint on a rock.  We zoom on through, oblivious of the dangers we escape.  But sometimes we slow down enough to notice we're pushing everything that's dear to us in a wheelbarrow...on a tightrope...above a chasm of doom.

2016 is shaping up to be a banner year for things slipping out of wheelbarrows.  And I blame Lemmy. Really.  I think, with special glasses, you can look back to Dec. 28th & see him still hanging on, laughing & shaking the lifeline to see who he can take with him.  He got the guy from the Damned, right?  And Glenn Frey to piss off the yuppies.  But no one expects David Bowie to slip (and all who come tumbling after).  I mean--forgive me a Lost Boys moment, but--if you were hanging on to the underside of a railroad bridge with David Bowie and he lets go, whooping joyously as he disappears into the fog, what would you do?  See ya, used to be ya!

It seems like every day the internet is telling me that someone has died.  It's oppressive.  It's overwhelming.  It's...nothing new.  It's how we do.

"if you get there before i do
my heart would dig a hole in the moon"
 
Ok, last night I was hanging out with B. and I was moping about Prince, about work, about my family's problems.  I felt like charcoal that was only glowing because my friend was nearby.  She asked me who else had died this year & I drew a blank.  I figured it was because I was worn out.  So I checked Wikipedia today & out of the hundreds listed, I only recognized a few.  And most of them were old.  When you're old, you die.  When you're a living being of any age in this environment, you play Russian Roulette with cancer.  Yes, you respect their passing.  But what made them special to us, the only connection we were ever going to have with them--the art, music, film, books--is all still here.  You know who wasn't listed?  My stepfather.  Any of the Brussels airport bombing victims.  Names to go with the bodies that piled up in the Garissa University attack in Kenya.  Those people are us.  And I get it.  I'm not criticizing, but reminding myself.  The deaths of David Bowie, Prince, etc. are the endings of stories that I can read as many times as I want.  Their art remains woven into the fabric of my life.  I wouldn't be me without it.  The heaviness I feel is for the people snuffed out without warning & the ones who stumble through life without ever figuring out how to live.  My own wasted days.

As our personal cultural figures slip away, we should take up the thread & exercise our own creativity.  As the world falls apart around us, we should try to live deeper.  Be kinder.  Make connections.  While nameless strangers are dying in situations we could find ourselves in any day, we should spend way more time with the people we love.

"in the sheets
the folds the crease
the blankets you are underneath
a whisper fills a willing ear
are you mine to keep?"

(Title & lyrics, His Name Is Alive - Stars on E.S.P.)