The Passing Present
With the death of Whitney last weekend, I felt a sadness, a sense of loss that life was slipping through my fingers as time marches unforgivingly forward. It wasn't so much a tragedy for me; it didn't make me grab my music player and create an all-Whitney playlist. It was the thought that a voice from my childhood had passed on. Impressionistic as I was when I was a kid, I learned her songs through cousins who belted, wailed and screamed "I Have Nothing" before segueing into "I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me.)" I didn't know who she was, not even her name (I was too young to bother with names of singers) until she belted out "Indayyyyyyy," stretching the "I" into an existential command, almost willing it to become a living entity. I was near the end of my single-digit life then and much of my life was still pegged in some dreamy future. You are the next generation. That's what the schools had ingrained in my head.