Prince
“Everyone
has their own experience. That's why we're here, to go through our
experience, to learn, to go down those paths and eventually you may
have gone down so many paths and learned so much that you don't have
to come back.”
Prince
Here's
a confession: I don't know Prince's music. I've never owned a
recording of his songs. But when they come on the radio, I always
stop whatever I am doing to dance. His music just moves through you,
takes over your body and dances it. I remember seeing him a few times
on TV, and being a little shocked by his outfit, all lace and bare skin. But, here's the thing—a great light, a gift, has gone out
of the world, and I feel the sadness and the weight of that.
Prince
loved making music so very much that he did not distinguish between
work and play. My son tells a story of being in a club here in
Birmingham in 2007 or '08. He and a friend were enjoying pizza and
beer and listening to a local band. In walked a small black dude, who
went straight to the stage, picked up a guitar and started jamming
with the band. Of course, it was Prince, who would be playing to a
sold-out crowd the next night at the Civic Center. He played until
the place closed, with a gang of folks he'd never met, and likely
would never see again, and he did it for free. That is his legacy—he
was music personified.
There
are so many lessons to learn from Prince's life and his death. Like
others before him, he burned his candle at both ends and in the
middle. He, no doubt, lived several lifetimes in one, because
according to friends and fellow musicians, he never stopped. He slept
little, and packed every single second with new ideas and
experiences. Great for us, but hard on his human body. He put
everything he had into creating his music, his dance, his look, and
saved very little for simply being; for rest and recovery. He gave
himself away in large doses to his community and his craft.
There's
something to be said for living an all-consuming, passionate life.
For loving something so much that you give your whole self to it. But
it is well to understand that it doesn't make for longevity, if
longevity is what you seek. Prince went down all the paths laid out
for him with single-minded ferocity. Perhaps he learned enough to not
come back. But something in me hopes he will.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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