Back to Black

A tiny rock hurtles through space. Falling into the earth's gravity, it hits the atmosphere at 10,000 miles per hour.

In the darkest distances of planet earth, man watches the night sky. Across the starry expanse shimmering against the blackness, a bright white streak of light flames into existence. Two seconds later, it fades into the black night.

Such is the life of a falling star. Its beauty is fleeting, but the memory of it shall last.

The first time I saw or even heard of Amy Winehouse, she was a drugged out sun bather on tabloid TV. I immediately hated her, disgusted by her anorexic, dishevelled appearance and apparent abuse of talent and fame. I had heard that she was an immense talent, and here she was flaunting her addictions, spitting in the face of her fans.

Then I heard her songs, and I immediately fell in love.

That high-toned, blue-flamed, soulful voice cut my heart in two, spilling my soul's blood deep into my guts. Those hypnotic rhythms and deep piano baseline of Back to Black struck a chord within me, and I found myself choreographing for the first time in years, if only in my mind. I was moved.

Suddenly, her addictions weren't so appalling. I understood. I could feel her life's torments of broken hearts and a mind in depressive disarray in her honest lyrics that spoke a truth only an artist could truly understand. She was in pain, and like many people, she tried to drown out the noise of it under a flood of alcohol and drugs.

I've never turned to alcohol to ease my depression because I witnessed first hand its destructive force on lives and families. Besides, I knew that it would only make me feel worse. And I made up my mind years ago that I would never turn to hard drugs because I did not want to become a slave to anything but my own mind. I smoked weed until I discovered that it would not cure me.

For whatever reasons, she fell into it.

Depression is not like quicksand, where you step in and slowly sink, where struggling to get out only worsens your predicament. No. It's like a trap door in the middle of a busy sidewalk. For no rhyme or reason, you fall in, and the only struggle is to find the strength and will to climb out and keep walking. Or you can try and dig yourself out by thrusting yourself deeper down the well, but that only ensures eternal imprisonment.

I have no idea what Amy went through, what trap door swallowed her. All I know is what she felt and why she followed the path of self-destruction. It is always a tempting choice when faced with the grim realities of a troubled mind. Sometimes the darkness is more comforting than the lights and sounds of the outside world.

Sometimes we find beauty in the anguish, and the only way to ease the misery is to communicate to the world what it is that we feel. That is where I know her. I find happiness in the self-hatred because therein lies a spark of beauty that no one who doesn't feel the pain of depression can see. It is the lone flower in a burned down forest.

Most people who suffer depression do so in silence. They don't scream because they don't want to be a burden, or they feel that no one will care. Some of us are comfortable enough in our prisons that we don't care who cares. We just want to express the beauty that we have found in desolation.

That was Amy's talent. She didn't hide the fact that she hurt. She didn't scream for help. She just shared what she found, even if it meant outing herself as an addict. People don't like addicts, but she didn't care. She spoke of hard realities and sinister conflicts within her own mind. She told the truth about where she was and why she didn't want out.

She was an artist.

She used that smoldering voice to speak of things that people just don't want to hear. She fooled people into loving her pain - no small feat considering that we live in a world where sympathy is saved for those who want it. We feel sorry for Gabrielle Giffords because she didn't shoot herself in the head. Yet oddly enough, we feel compassion for Kurt Cobain who did just that. It's the prolonged self-abuse that we despise and deride. No one considers the agony that leads to it. All we see are its effects, and there's no sympathy for the disintegrating rock in the sky. We only feel sorry for the helpless, not the hopeless.

One day, I will revel in the depths of my own making again. But there may be no one in the distance watching for my light to streak across the sky. Does it matter? No, because I refuse to flame out. I will mine the well for jewels of real life and toss them to the surface, not caring if anyone finds them and picks them up. All that matters is that those gems of life reflect the midday sun. They weren't meant to sit in the darkness because their radiance is their nature.

To the man watching in the distance, it is just a faint glimpse of the brilliance the universe has to offer. For him, I feel sorry, for he will never feel what it is like to be a piece of the universe. He will only be an observer. Love or hate Amy Winehouse, she was just that - a living, breathing spark of universal creation that leapt forth from the chasm to share with us a glimpse of the ugly beauty she witnessed. She left it on the surface for us to find, and now she is no longer digging.

Her beauty will be missed, and her contributions will always be appreciated by those of us who understood her. Now go back to the stars where you belong, Amy.