Last week, I got my hair cut and colored at my favorite hair salon. While my stylist Christine was gooing me up with hair dye and folding foils into my hair, the woman in the chair next to mine turned to me and said, “Are you feeling undone by Prince’s death? Because I’m a mess.”
I was surprised she would spontaneously ask me this question. But I wasn’t surprised she’d been so affected by Prince’s death. I have to admit, I was shaken by his death as well.
But why?
It’s not as if I knew him personally. I’m not going to miss seeing him at the corner drugstore nor am I going to stare at his empty chair while having my Sunday dinner. He wasn’t my best buddy, my distant cousin or my ex-husband.
So why should I feel so sad and disturbed by his death? Why do we as a society mourn so when one of our celebrities or artists dies? How is it that the woman next to me at the hair salon can feel “undone” by Prince’s death?
Why do we take these losses so damned personally?
I’ve been asking myself this question since David Bowie died earlier this year, and here’s what I’ve come up with.
We grieve the loss of our artists because even though we may not have known them personally, they’ve had a profound and personal influence on our lives.
These artists, they get under our skin and into our hearts. They thave a larger-than-life impact on the way we think and feel. About ourselves, our world, our prejudices, our sexuality, our possibilities, as well as our own talents and our willingness to express them.
We’ve been influenced and changed not only by their art but by their personas, their outrageousness, their bold self-expression, their world view, their politics, their spirituality… and even their fashion sense.
I know a man who loves David Bowie. For him, Bowie was not just a musical hero but a personal hero because his music, his persona and even his androgynous look had such a huge positive influence on this man’s life, art, and even his self-esteem.
When Bowie died, this man grieved deeply. Perhaps more deeply than he’d grieved the deaths of people he’d known personally. Because in a very real way, David Bowie had more of a positive influence on his life than many of his friends or relatives.
Prince. I’ve never met him. I never even got to see him in concert. And quite honestly, I’ve not listened to much of his music over the last several years.
But I’ll never forget the devilish joy I felt dancing to his song, “Kiss” with my friend’s daughter, Emily. Or feeling slightly shocked yet liberated by his outrageously explicit lyrics. Or watching the movie Purple Rain and being surprised by the overwhelming longing, loneliness, and heartbreak I felt as Prince wailed into his guitar solo.
To this day, when I hear those first chords of Purple Rain, I tremble. The tiniest bit. As if I’m in danger of falling apart.
We grieve these artists because they somehow get into the crevices of our psyche and soul and make us more aware of who we are. In our fragility, our power, our limitlessness and our humanness. They make us shake our heads, move our bodies, open our hearts, take chances, imagine possibilities and feel more alive and awake than we ever would have without them.
This is why we love them.
And when they die, we grieve not because they’re a part of our daily life but because our grief is the only way we know how to express our deep appreciation for all they gave to us. We grieve not because we’ll miss seeing them at the Farmer’s Market on Saturday. We grieve because it’s our way of honoring their life and their art and how both influenced, affected and changed our lives.
“Despite everything, no one can dictate who you are to other people.” – Prince
It’s quite a beautiful thing, really. What we feel for these artists who have moved, shaped, stirred and liberated us to feel what’s true about ourselves.
But they aren’t the only ones who have this kind of crazy magic – the kind of crazy magic that happens when someone writes something – a song, a poem, a blog post, or even a web page – and someone else, a million miles away, can hear it or read it, and be moved, touched, inspired, enlivened, awakened, encouraged, uplifted. And changed.
You, too, have this crazy kind of magic available to you. You, too, can reach, touch, inspire and stir the soul within other human beings. Not just with the work you do in the world, but with your words.
Think about this the next time you write a blog post. Or a web page. Or even a sales page. Give your words the power to reach across the stratosphere and land hard in someone’s heart. Write your copy with the intention to uplift, encourage, awaken, embolden and inspire people to feel the truth of who they are, what they long for, and what they’ll allow themselves to have.
You may not reach millions with your words. Or play to sold-out stadiums or win a Grammy or have a football field’s worth of flowers strewn on your front lawn the day you die. But you will have moved someone from despair to hopefulness, from frustration to eagerness, from loneliness to inclusion, from grief to peace, from hell to a little piece of heaven.