Thank you, Starman.

Last night, upon hearing about Bowie's passing, I burst into tears. I was not prepared to feel the way I did about his death... it didn't seem possible for a FIRE like that to extinguish, and certainly not by way of such a mortal disease...

If Bowie was going anywhere, it was by way of comet. Or lightning bolt. Or unicorn.... 

But it wasn't until this morning that I realized, selfishly, that I wasn't crying for him but for myself... for all of those moments and memories when he was there -- a god-like entity and voice calling out to all mortals to FIND YOUR WILD, to REBEL and to LOVE and to DANCE and to BUILD A FORTRESS IN THE CLOUDS WHERE YOU CAN BE WEIRD AND A LITTLE BIT CRAZY AND AMAZING, TOO, BECAUSE WHY THE FUCK NOT?

Crack in the sky and a hand reaching down to me...

It felt as if the past was already buried and I missed the wake.

And the funeral.

And... now what?

And the stars looks very different today. 

I suddenly felt the urge to explore the last 30 years of my life... to find all of the lost loves and rekindle old friendship, re-rent old apartments, re-experience all of the nights spent splayed across stained carpet in the living rooms of friends and their turn tables.

Screaming along to HEROES and MEANING EVERY WORD. 

"I! I WILL BE KING!"

"AND YOU. YOU WILL BE QUEEN..."

"AND NOTHING WILL DRIVE US AWAY."

And we swore that nothing ever would. 

We swore with our pinkies.  And our mouths and our hearts 

Just for one day. 

Because sometimes that's as long as it lasts. 

We didn't know it at the time, though.

We were too busy singing. 

***

Last night, as I scrolled though hundreds of statements from mourning strangers, I felt at once like I was with a million friends curled up around a giant turn table, passing a joint, a cigarette, a bottle of whiskey.... like together we could do anything --  we could absorb the silence between tracks. And then, suddenly, break into song.

OH NO, LOVE, YOU'RE NOT ALONE!

GIMME YOUR HANDS CAUSE YOU'RE WONDERFUL. 

GIMME YOUR HANDS CAUSE YOU'RE WONDERFUL 

OH GIMME YOUR HANDS.

***

He wasn't supposed to die. 

He was the Tooth Fairy, garish and transformative, taking our lost pieces and replacing them with reminders that it was possible for ALL human beings to pull off being themselves. 

No matter what or who you've been! 

Bowie's brilliant anomaly was a mirror the size of earth, reflecting all our oddities as diamonds.

...So we wore the sequin pants our parents told us we shouldn't. We wore them again and again and never stopped. 

We joined circuses and also protested them. 

We carried our records and our cassette tapes and our Bowie at the Beeb box sets around with us, in the baskets of our bikes and the trunks of our cars and the memories of our youth. 

We fell in love with songs and also to them. 

"I love this song," we'd say. 

"And I love you when you sing it. Let's learn it together on the piano and guitar." 

CAUSE YOU'RE WONDERFUL... 

He was the legend we all had within us...

...And we'll never be sorry for believing...

...Drawing lines between planets thanks to our Starman in the sky. 

***