Mortality

The news of Amy Winehouse’s death struck me with a sense of grief I’ve been feeling a lot lately. I wonder if people realize how precious every moment of our lives is when they are living it. Each time you experience a real connection, shared moments of peace, joy, fear, elation, shared satisfaction, rage or repent in real time. Do most people ever feel how alive they are? Is fear overrunning our existence or just making us find more weapons of mass distraction in hyper-sensational activities?

I was wondering the other day, if expressing love and caring has become too passe. Is it too old fashioned or absurdist due to overuse? Does it mean anything after the up-tenth marriage or union to feel madly and hopelessly in love? Is the fear of FaceBook or dating sites destroying relationships going to completely obliterate old-fashioned courtship? Will Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony remain friends? Does anyone know how intense and profound Jenny McCarthy showing her inflated pregnant body means in a world where women rather are thought of as hot rather than accomplished?

In this failed economy, I’ve been asked to work from 8am to 6pm and then resume work in the evening and weekends to file reports of my activities. I’ve owned two businesses in my life and never worked that hard! How does anyone choose to work over living and experiencing life? Does each day only seem like a gift to a few of us? Even if you own all the profits and benefits to your own success, what does it buy you in the end?

As a child, I’d frighten myself trying to imagine death. I’d hold my breath and try to imagine an empty void of nothingness. The whole floating on a cloud with cherubs or burning in hell just didn’t convince me. I saw lifeless inanimate beings and felt the life source was out of them. It, the live force, was merely over.

Now, I think of a profound sleep and the pain of waking from it. Death must be something like that drifting into nothingness and never returning. It doesn’t scare me, but I still have a lot of living and experiencing to do. So, Death, if you are reading this, I’m not done yet. There is a lot more I need to see and do before I’m done on this plane of existence.

Back to Amy…Artists are sometimes so sensitive, so aware, that it is earth shattering to be them. Imagine if a song, a tune or combination of words can break your heart or take your breath away for an instant. What is that artist experiencing? It blows my mind to try to fathom it. I can only try to imagine that intensity.

Amy was an original, a great talent and true artist, but also a troubled soul. Honestly, because of her youth I didn’t take her breakup with her husband seriously. I didn’t see her addictions as something that would win over the beautiful soul I saw within her. I hoped as I do with Whitney Houston, that they would come back stronger and wiser with a real “forget” you attitude and show the world they could overcome hard challenges. I still hope for Whitney as I hope for Tiger and even that thrill-seeking New York politician exposing his sexual emptiness online.

We all have faults and weaknesses, and it is what makes us both human and lovable. It is wonderful to share space with a true friend or lover where you can just hang loose and be the real idiot no outsider will ever know. It is quite delicious. I prefer to stay home or visit people who I share this strange feeling with often. Life has taught me that the satisfaction of life is not external. Happiness is within us and meant to be shared. If we are lucky, we can express it to those wonderful people around us and feel completely connected and free.

I wish that for all of you reading this!