Speechless

There are few things that can render me speechless.  However, at 5:56 pm that very thing happened.  I was driving down 13th St NW, passing Alero and my friend Marla intercepted my call.  She said, "Michael Jackson is gone."  I said, "what do you mean gone?" She said, "Like my dad is gone." And I said, "Oh Marla, no.  You can't be serious!!" It took a good ten seconds for it to sink in.  Meanwhile, I got totally disoriented and couldn't remember where I was supposed to be going! I drove around Logan Circle one and a half times before I remembered where I was supposed to be going.

I had been driving down North Capitol Street earlier that day when they announced Farrah Fawcett had passed away.  I prayed for peace for her and comfort in her long struggle with cancer.  I had watched a couple of photo montages of her on CNN and thought about how beautiful she was and I hoped that her energy was renewed into something half as touching as she was here on earth. 

I took a long deep breath and turned on the radio.  The Associated Press hadn't confirmed his death when I tuned in, but the radio stations were sending their regards out by playing his music.  Daddy called me and I had no words.  Finally, the LA Times confirmed, and CNN did the same.  Michael Jackson, dead at 50. They played any MJ they could get their hands on.  "Enjoy Yourself" was blaring through the speakers.  I would blast MJ often, lots of times after getting my hair done, when I was really feeling myself.  In my undergraduate years "ABC" was the only song I played before important tests.  MJ was never out of my rotation.  

I was doing well listening to the music until they played, "Got to Be There", which is my favorite MJ song.  I held it together until the last verse when I realized that the timber of his voice was so remarkable, even at that young age.  There aren't words for how I feel about music.  But I can tell you that at times it touches my very core; it speaks to me at the most basic level, transcending words even.  This time was no different.  I didn't want to go home and turn on the TV.  That would really make it real.  And it did. Each time I tried to wrap my mind around it, they'd play a clip that stunned me.  And videos came out of the woodworks: "Leave Me Alone", "Smooth Criminal", "In the Closet".  I was stuck fast to the screen.  Couldn't get anything done and I was leaving for St. Louis the next day! Didn't even start browning the mushrooms and onions for spaghetti until 10 pm.  *Shaking my head*

Motown 25.  My parents had the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, we had Motown 25 and the Moonwalk. Our lives were forever changed.  ICONIC.  What's sad is that now he has achieved true iconic status.  He was a prodigy that the world watched climb to heights unmatched.  And an eccentric that the same world was quick to ridicule and shame.  It's not my place to speculate or judge what happened in his time within my reality.  My hope is that his lifeforce has transcended what we know as life and that he can finally be free to achieve peace.

I am joined with my peers at mourning the loss of a critical piece of my childhood. There simply isn't another pop culture icon that I can use to chronicle my childhood the way I can with MJ.  On old tapes my mother has of us talking, we're singing, "I Can't Help it", and "P.Y.T".  "Thriller" and "E.T: the Extra Terrestrial" were crucial moments in my life. My Dad kept "Off the Wall" heavy in rotation until "Thriller" and it seems as though most of my early music memories are of MJ, Stevie, Marvin, the Temptations and Earth Wind and Fire.  I'm sad that MJ has left us, but we are all the better for having him here while we did.