Sometimes, in writing, the work takes on a life of it’s own. It insists on going its own way, no matter what you intend, and there is nothing you can do about it. Today is one of those times. This post wasn’t what I started to write, but it seems I couldn’t help myself. Sometimes events overtake you, and you are left to ponder them, and take from them what you will, for better or for worse. This past week was such a week.

In the last few days, we have all been spectators at a world event of epic proportions, if only because of the excess of everything involved. The passing of an icon, especially one as quirky and controversial as the King of Pop, was bound to bring about excess. But this was Princess Diana style excess, something I didn’t think I would witness again in my lifetime.

After the whole spectacle was over ten years ago, I remember wondering if anyone who participated in the orgy of grief over Princess Diana would look back and question their own part in the proceedings. [Brief digression here, but Elton John rewriting one of his most famous songs in tribute was one of the saddest moments in musical history, as far as I am concerned.] I wonder if anyone who participated in the excesses of this past week will look back on it in a similar way and question what drove them to be a part of the orgy of grief this time.

Personally, I think there is a phenomenon of mass grief that occasionally grips the world. It’s almost like every now and then, we have to have something to pull us all together, and remind us that we are all, at the very end of the day, people, and we are on this rotating ball together. Whether it’s the death of someone globally famous, or a worldwide tragedy like 9/11 or the tsunami, these world events make us all aware of how vulnerable we are, and how little control we really have over what happens to us. It’s as if, for a brief moment in time, we are all pulling in the same direction.

And it’s a sobering reality we must consider. If, with all his money and power and fame, Michael Jackson couldn’t control his fate, then what hope have the rest of us, who toil in obscurity for our whole lives?

Of course, we all experience these epic moments differently. For me, the first thing I thought of was not the death of the King of Pop, or even that a tortured soul will finally have some peace. I thought of his children, who are now left essentially parentless and alone in a rather frightening world that up until now, they have been entirely protected from. Having lost my own dad when he was just 50, and I was only 12, I quite naturally have a heart for the children, and my thoughts go out to them.

For his children, they haven’t lost an icon or a musical genius or even a far away hero. Their relationship with him was independent of the public persona, and it wasn’t wrapped up in his controversies or his dance moves. Whatever your opinion of him, he was their father, the only one they have ever known, and they are now without him. That is heartbreaking to me.

For most people under the age of 50, I’m sure Michael Jackson was always in the world. He started singing on stage when he was five, which means I was only three at the time. He was always out there, front and center.

It’s certainly hard to imagine the world of music without his influence over the last few decades. He was a catalyst for many of the most iconoclastic images of modern music. Everything from his moon walk to his glove to his ever changing skin and face were new, different, challenging to the way things have always been done.

Without his leadership, everything from dance to music video would be different. There is no denying that even at 50, he clearly still had the power to move, and we’ll never know how big his new tour would have been. But from watching the brief video taken during a recent rehearsal, it seems clear that Michael, the Performer, was still at the top of his game, and he would have put on an amazing spectacle of a show.

One of the producers of the upcoming show talked candidly about Michael’s motives in doing this tour. Money, of course, was the main driver, as his lavish lifestyle came at an unimaginably high price.

But there was another motive, and it was that motive which caught my interest, which suddenly, out of nowhere, made Michael Jackson human for me. He wanted redemption – he wanted to show not only his fans, but I believe more importantly, himself, that he was still the King of Pop, the popular boy. But it turns out he was really Peter Pan on Xanax.

I think, at the bottom of it all, he was still a little boy looking for love and approval, and he couldn’t even find it inside himself. That is an indictment, not of Michael, but of all the people around him who used him to line their pockets or enhance their own fame, without ever considering the cost to the heart and soul of the Lonely One.

When I am gone from this earth, there are really only two things that will matter in summing up my life. I think they apply to Michael Jackson, and everyone else, as well. Did you leave the world a better place than you found it? Did your contributions justify the rest of your existence?

Thankfully, I will never have to be his judge or his jury. I have made enough of a mess of my own life – I don’t need to be commenting on anyone else’s bad decisions or faulty judgment. (Okay, that is a comment, I realize, but I think it’s pretty clear that holding your baby out over a balcony is just stupid, and let’s not even get into slumber parties with children when you are an unrelated adult.) A jury of his peers acquitted him of his legal difficulties, and one of those who accused him of the most heinous acts has now recanted as an adult. It is entirely possible that the image of dollar signs blinded people into thinking that they could destroy what he dedicated his lifetime to building, without a thought for the real human being inside the bubble.

Michael Jackson was the Wizard in his own wacky Oz, an ever changing chameleon, a façade behind which hid an unknown personality seen only by a few insiders, if by anyone at all. Peter Pan may have been real after all, but we are left to wonder whether Michael Jackson was.

It is now left for the ages to determine his contribution, both to the world of music, and to the world generally. Michael Jackson has fulfilled his destiny, whatever it may be, and we can only hope that one of the more tortured individuals to ever walk on this earth is now at peace.

I think Michael Jackson’s fast burning life, over too soon, should serve as a warning call to every stage parent pushing their child forward to perform, or to excel, at too young of an age. When they are five, they should be performing on their front porch, not in Motown. When they are 17, they don’t need the adulation of a bazillion fans, they need the love and attention of their parents and the people close to them.

Although I am not much of a television watcher, and I am definitely not an American Idol fan, last year I couldn’t help but notice the show highlights, since the ultimate winner was from Kansas City. It was the battle of the two Davids, and I, for one, hoped that David Cook would win, not necessarily because he was better, but because the other David was so clearly in over his head with the fame and publicity and attention swirling around him.

The collapse of Susan Boyle shouldn’t have surprised anyone. A regular person thrown into the fish bowl of the super famous would have a hard time walking out the front door, to say nothing of performing in front of millions of fans who will be let down if you fail. I think the collapse of Michael Jackson, the person, was the outcome even he knew to be all but inevitable, given the highly public nature of the life of a man who was clearly a very private individual.

I also believe that we, the public, played a role in that breakdown. By trying and convicting him of everything imaginable in the court of public of opinion, we stripped him of his humanity and his dignity, and still we clamored for more. By allowing our prurient interest in everything celebrity to overcome our better judgment and common sense, we put the hammer to the wall.

As we all heave a collective sigh, we, the public, will move on with our lives. Whether you ate up every moment, or studiously ignored it, the untimely death of Michael Jackson at the incredibly young age of 50 was noticed by the world, and has made an impact on millions and millions of people. But like Princess Diana, for most of us, this was a moment of time in our lives, and meant nothing more significant.

But for his family, especially his children, and his friends, his absence will change their lives forever. I can only wish his three children a life of normalcy and mundane happenings. I hope they will find their name to be a blessing and not a curse. I hope they find peace within themselves, and forgiveness for their father for not being there for every important moment for the rest of their lives. I hope that their grandparents can get the dollar signs out of their eyes, and will take loving care of the living legacy that Michael left to them. They are the world he was talking about in his music.

But the cynic in me says they will be a commodity, just as their father was. We can only hope that they lead a brighter life than the supernova they called Daddy.

Independence Day....

Being yesterday was the Fourth of July, where here in America, we celebrate the independence of our great nation from the tyranny of taxation without representation, (leaving us all to wonder why the current system of tyranny with representation is somehow better, but I digress,) I got to thinking about what independence day really means. Not Independence Day, the holiday, but the independence days that come into our lives, bidden or unbidden, and allow us to set a new course, or force us to blaze a new trail, in our personal and professional existence.

Independence day is much on mind lately, because I am about to change my name back to the name I started with. Almost exactly 25 years to the day after I took the name of my new husband, I am going back to the old name that I will now wear with a new kind of pride. That will be a happy day for me, one I have looked forward to for many months, and I am anticipating it as a new beginning, a fresh start, freed from some of the events in my life that have held me back and kept me from moving forward.

It is symbolic, I suppose, in a way, to take back my maiden name. I will admit, I do feel it is sort of like taking back myself.

But it is more than that, for me. It is my own personal Declaration of Independence from a life that no longer fits, a world to which I no longer belong. And although that sounds like a negative reaction, on the contrary, for me, it feels like a positive step forward towards the life I now lead, and in which I am, by and large, pretty happy. The married me was sober and serious; that life was a hard path from start to finish. I am hoping the maiden me will be more lighthearted and easy going, not so much wrapped up in what is wrong, more focused on what it possible.

There have been a few independence days in my life, big and small, as there are for most people. There have been the life milestones - the first step, the first time I went to kindergarten and left Mommy behind, the first sleepover. There have been bigger days, too - high school graduation, for example, where suddenly, whether I was ready or not, there I was, an independent adult. Or at least, so the world was telling me. [I'll guarantee you my very own mother will beg to differ, but that's another story.]

I have had some very reluctant independent moments - my father's funeral, when at age 12, I was suddenly dealing with a grown up reality in a child's world, and the day my husband declared that he was done being married to me and walked away, leaving me alone to deal with the fallout of his single-minded decision. I'll admit, I didn't feel very independent that day, but it was the start of something big - the taking over of my own life, and although I didn't know it then, it was a moment of great independence for me.

The last few years have been very difficult in my world. Divorce is a hard thing to go through - be it a nation from it's parent or a wife from her husband. The breaking apart of a family, and the reorganization into something new, hopefully something more functional, but definitely something different, is a painful process.

As a country, we are still a teenager in the eyes of the world. We are brash, self-absorbed, demanding, and often rude to the older, more experienced nations that used to lead the way. But at the same time, we are innovative, fresh, and free of some of the constraints that hold them back and keep them from being everything they can be.

As I approach my own day of independence and freedom, I hope that I, too, can reorganize my world into something fresh and new and beautiful and exciting. It is a challenge, but like most of my countrymen, I think I am up to the challenge.

Happy Independence Day America! And happy independence day to everyone who is experiencing their own personal renewal, whatever it may be. Sparkle a little with me!