This weekend we took a jaunt in our Airstream and went to the happiest valley on earth- Santa Ynez. We joined the crowd and followed the Hummers and the fat cats, the hip hoppers, the boomer doo-wopper's, and the southern California Valley Girls to the memorial festival and up to the gates (literally standing in front on my Facebook Wall) to Neverland all at once realizing that he is truly the pop icon for all ages. Like Joan of Arc, Michael Jackson embodied some of the same vulnerabilities and courage. He stood at the stake on many occasions and got fried for several misdemeanors which in light of his passing may never, or might as Steve Lopez wrote today, surface again.
All weekend I could not just sense but feel the world axis spinning madly around a new but somber blue-faced moon. Like Michael's sometimes expressionless, white skinned as a donut's glaze and his icy stare, I could feel, sense his feet upon the moons surface; strutting forward then backward, toe to heel, awakening earthlings to the untimely destiny we each hold. Our lives, as his, follows a beaten path, maybe a different rhythm spurs us on but nonetheless sometimes we take for granted the inconclusive meaning of each of our days and question what will come next never knowing, really knowing if there will be a next.
I cherish my days and my nights, my friends and whatever family I have amongst them as I know from experience the tenuous ways loves bonds can be tied and then broken.
I find lately, that I long to experience another season in all its vibrancy and I equally long to share pleasurable times with people I love.
I watched as strangers became family offering tokens of love for his remembrance. I heard the distant sounds of men wanting to mirror then mentor the fallen man with sayings like, "The King of Pop lives on" and "Three shirts for ten bucks."
I had to believe as the believers did that somehow he was not really gone. That his music and the man he saw reflected in the mirror is a legend for all time and for all people. And that Neverland is a peaceful place in a beautiful valley where the only sound is the wind as it whistles across the sprawling branches of the live standing oaks, some one hundred years or more. Forever.