Life Is Beautiful

At the Life Is Beautiful three day festival in Las Vegas I saw a band called The Flaming Lips.  I did not know their music all too well.  I was only familiar with three or four songs.  I would call them their own genre.  A kind of psychedelic alternative meets opera rock.

The band came on at the same time as Outkast so it was not too crowded.  Huge blow up animals with people inside crowded the stage with walking life size rainbows and mushrooms and aliens.  The show was spectacular.

But, the reason I am writing this is because one of their songs touched me.  It was a song I had heard before, but I had not listened intently to the lyrics.  It is called, "Do You Realize?" and the lyrics go like this:

"Do you realize?  That everyone you know-someday will die? And instead of saying all your goodbyes let them know-You realize that life goes fast-it's hard to make the good things last.  You realize the sun don't go down-It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning around."

That thought is awesome and sublime when you think of it.  We will all die.  All our friends will die and the world will still be here spinning around.  So why get caught up in the small stuff?  We spend so much time worrying about trivial things instead of enjoying life in the moment.  A wise women (my therapist) told me something the other day.  She said, "Juanita, there is a time in life to make things happen and there is a time in life to just let life happen.  You need to let life unfold and live in the moment instead of always worrying about what you need to be doing."

My therapist and The Flaming Lips were both saying the same profound thing to me.  Life is beautiful.  Life is short.  Life can be tragic and sad.  But you can't avoid the loss.  You can only live your life and tell those you love that you adore them.  Shout it to the high heavens before it is too late.  If I could, I would bring my dad to Vegas and tell him how I adore him and how he was the best father in the world.  I would thank him for teaching me a love of music and movies and how to play gin rummy.

And while I am here in Vegas, I will tell my husband Adrian over and over how much I appreciate him and how lucky I was in my twenty year old drunken haze to meet him at a club in Pomona twenty plus years ago.  The universe was watching out for me that night.

And I will tell the written word how much I love writing and that in the end, my art is my legacy.  These letters I am typing may be all I leave to remind others I was here and ultimately, baby or no baby, I am here.  I am happy.  And life is beautiful.