Prince

My life is pretty much defined by a lyric I wrote a few years back: “dualities struggled with, high wires tiptoed across.”

I’ve always struggled to reconcile opposing instincts, conflicting desires, and diverging impulses.

No matter the topic; sex, drugs, politics, faith, family, career, music I always find myself in the same place.

Prince was different. Prince saw no such conflict. He lived at the crossroads between sin and faith, lust and love, sex and god, funk and soul, rock and roll….and the only struggle he seemed to endure was how far to go down each road at the same time while having the time of his life.

He was fearless. He was FREE. There were no boundaries he allowed to be placed on his music, his sexuality, his faith, his style or anything else.

Where I saw struggle and conflict, he saw freedom and opportunity.

That’s what I take away from Prince and that’s what I feel his legacy is…beyond the INCREDIBLE musicianship, ambition, bold fashion, and sheer brilliance of everything he did.

To me, the real heart and soul of Prince was the fact that for him, there was no struggle to reconcile what seem to me to always be such opposite forces.

For him, that space in between is where the magic is. Don’t fight it. Embrace it.

I’ve spent years trying to understand Prince, following this incredible career and having my jaw drop time after time but I guess it took his untimely death for me to really GET him.

And now…I think I’ve found my personal life work. I need to stew in the conflict and realize that it isn’t a conflict at all. It’s where the magic is. I just need to have a shred of Prince’s confidence to see that and make something of it.

Godspeed Prince.