Nobody would’ve had him in their hideous death pool for he was brazen and bold, unabashedly unorthodox, and achieved fame on his own terms.
He was punk rock.
He had overcome his demons, earning streetcred by dashing through the mist left by the ghosts of poor choices.
He was in the clear.
He was an old man who didn’t act his age.
He had it all.
Then he was dead. Suicide in a Parisian hotel room.
There are countless hours spent alone in a variety of hotel rooms — from charming wooded cottages to palatial urban suites — and strapped into a sea of bobbing strangers clamoring for an exit aisle, asking for the full can, getting up to pee again, falling asleep with the light on. There’s an incessant shuffling in queues to go here and there, with earbuds in, hoodies up, head-down.
We float on, smiling when we can, when we must, when we’re expected to, and wondering too often if the end can ever really justify these means we profess to adore.
Got a new stamp on the 2nd to last page. Almost there. I’m happy now, right?
Others get jealous, but that’s a byproduct not an intention. None of us want that but the gloss is contagious. Most of the time though, the truth is, we’re on the matte, on our backs, on our feet trying to find a way back home.
Until then, we suffer.
There’s always a better photo to be made of what it is we just witnessed — the famous thing, the exotic place, the foreign food plated so beautifully, the mother’s tired face which says it all, the story that writes itself. There’s always a more beautiful sentence to convey the emotion of the scene. The words are right there, scattered about the Venetian tiled floor, carved into the ornate mahogany headboard, floating in the bisque.
We beat ourselves up to do better, go further, try harder, and we usually do it all alone in a room lit by the glow of the life passing us by outside. It’s an isolating profession that scores of peers scratch and claw to have on their CV.
It’s 5pm here now. I’m going to sit by the window for a bit.
I’ll pull back the double panel floral curtains and watch the world go by with the quiet bellowing of my thoughts filling the silence.
One Comment