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ah Whitney

this is two posts at once but it’s really two things.

on the train ride from fes to casablanca I put on ‘how will I know?’ and sank all the way into my Whitney grief. which meant crying like a baby in my little cabin while all these sweet women tried to comfort me, though I couldn’t explain…they didn’t know what ‘whit-(sighing hiccup)ney’ meant.

it’s just another life’s journey, and I want to have no judgement of her, but this was not how it was supposed to go for Whitney. not Whitney from the Whitney Houston album. not Whitney who promised to always love me in that incomparable voice.

I’m not into this aspect of getting older – not only do I have to lose and mourn loved ones i knew and held, but also those who shaped my culture, my singing, my pop culture sensibilities?

Whitney was young, and a mother, and an addict on the rebound, and she finally walked away from Bobby (right?) and aren’t you supposed to get rewarded by God with a little more time if you make a good effort to walk away from the shitty path and try the promised one that was born out of your spectacular vocal chords?

I wanted Whitney to get the movie version of her life, the great come back.

as I have felt with so many artists – fame is a hungry beast, and keeps devouring our best. we should protect our greatest talents, but we put them under our microscopes, helpless as ants in that heat. our love appears to be fatal.

my experiences with grief have taught me that even if it’s 90% likely that the person is in a better place, it still feels unfair and too soon and wrong for those left with our jaws dropped.

only we aren’t surprised to lose Whitney, anymore than we were to lose Amy, and even Michael. and given the talent gifted to us through these artists, when we don’t feel surprised, we should at least feel some massive collective shame.

how can we do better by the creatives? how can we honor them, without crushing them?

Whitney, rest in peace.