Monday, January 11, 2016

Carry the News

I've wanted to write about David Bowie all day, and how it feels to know he's left the world. But I've fallen over that cliff--the one my children lead me to after dinner in the hours until they're asleep. After that last kiss, after I leave the room and quietly turn the doorknob, I tip, and then I'm gone....

Feel like I have to mark the day somehow, still. I saw the news about David Bowie on Instagram this morning and really wanted to go back to not knowing. It's hard when they go -- the ones that shaped the world of your childhood and adolescence and stayed with you through adulthood. I wasn't a knowledgeable or devoted fan but I was a constant admirer and I easily put him in the group of people who made the world better. He's one of the ones I'd rather keep on earth permanently. 

This one's harder than most, for some reason. It's that I don't know who takes his place. Maybe no one. Maybe it's bad because it means I'm of an age when the pieces of the world I know best break off and I don't know where to stand. Can't stand on their shoulders anymore -- gotta grow up and make the world ourselves now.