The dance floor was packed with far more people than just those who attended the dinner or even the movie. There must have been another two or three hundred people, but I was never very good at estimating crowd size. I didn’t know where they all came from or who they were, but everybody was dancing and singing along to the . . . wait. That’s no DJ. That’s fucking Prince! Prince was playing the after-life party!
Prince was famous for showing up in clubs after his shows and throwing down for another three or four hours. Might as well keep it going in heaven. He might never stop playing here. Prince never struck me as someone to let a little thing like death slow him down. Hell, Prince never really struck me as someone who believed in life, death, or any of it. He lived in some other kind of vortex that we couldn’t possibly understand. Artists—the real artists—always amazed me with this kind of spirit. I thought that to believe in your art at such a high level demanded an entirely extra level of belief. You had to allow yourself to detach from the norms of reality . . . and the reality of norms. You had to be above it. Or far, far in front of it with no ability to look back. Jess was like that.
I had seen The Purple One in concert a few times. His energy was electric. His performances, inspiring. He would play for two, three, four hours, and what made them even more awesome was that he didn’t allow people to use their cell phones to take pictures or videos. No, he wanted his fans in the moment. “You bought the tickets,” he told us. “Only you should get to remember this.” It was his effort to give us a glimpse beyond the norms. It was a challenge to break the status quo. A dare to experience something in the moment and be unable to share it after the moment had passed. I remember putting my phone in my pocket and feeling relief.
His death sent multiple generations of music fans into a tailspin. We all grieved, but in a strange way, Prince’s death made sense to me. He didn’t strike me as the kind of artist who should wither away and die. I couldn’t imagine an eighty-year-old Prince. I thought his death, like his life, should be a show. Performance art. “God is going to have one hell of a house band,” was the party line. Turns out they were right. I was here watching it. Still, I kind of wanted to see God with the headphones behind the turntables. Or maybe crowd surfing. Yeah. God crowd surfing. That would be cool.
I watched as Prince moved effortlessly on the stage. He was reported to have been in significant pain at the time of his death, which is what led to his accidental overdose of painkillers. He didn’t seem to be feeling any pain now. Gone was the cane he had used to get around the stage the last time I saw him. The electric moves were back.
There’s no shame there—the word people used to describe his death. That was always the party line when an artist died young or in nefarious circumstances. I always hated that. Who were we to say it was a shame? I think our inability to explain our own lives makes it easier to judge others. Duh. Obviously. My God, Prince was beautiful. And back in all his glory.
The room was painted in a purple light. A series of mirrored balls hung from the ceiling and reflected whites and pinks against the purple. Prince invited a group of dancers up on the stage. It was a trademark move. I stood in the back of the room and watched. I liked to watch these kinds of things from a distance. I liked to notice the nuances of things and create stories. I was feeling the love.
“Come on,” Fate said. “I want to introduce you to someone.”
Really? Now? Dude, that’s Prince! Fiiiiiine. I followed Fate through the heavy back doors that completely blocked the sound when they closed behind us. We were standing in a garden. “Follow the path,” Fate motioned to his left, where stepping stones led into darkness. “Follow the path,” he said again. His tone was one that felt final. Like I wasn’t going to see him again. He was passing me on to someone or something else.
I was uncomfortable and defaulted to what I knew best. “This feels kind of like the finale of The Bachelor, and you’re Chris Harrison. Except he usually says something about your fate awaiting you, but my Fate is right here.”
Fate was kind. Fate, really, was always kind. “Follow the path,” he repeated. He then turned and walked away.
Fate had given me plenty of paths to follow when I was alive. Most of the time, I didn’t take them. Other times, I may have done it without really knowing. I was in no position to walk away at this point. I was in no position to disregard his words. Follow the path. I felt like James Earl Jones walking into the cornfield in Field of Dreams.
I found myself walking through a garden of light. Streams of color burst from the flowers: reds, yellows, greens, blues, oranges, and more filled the sky and painted themselves across my face and body as I walked. The lights felt warm and soft. They didn’t blind me when they crossed over my eyes. I wasn’t even thinking about the steps I was taking. When I looked down, I realized why. I wasn’t walking at all. I was floating. The lights were lifting me. I felt light in my body and also my mind. This was like one of the stories in those near-death experience books. Where was I going? I didn’t know. And it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter at all. To see all that was around me better, I closed my eyes.
It made perfect sense to me. I finally understood that clarity required surrender. Contentment required surrender. In this moment, I had accomplished just that—total surrender. I always thought that contentment was the goal. I was wrong. It was to surrender. I wasn’t on a path. I was the path.
Surrender to yourself. Surrender to your soul. Surrender to your being. The rest will happen whether you worry about it or not. Seems so simple now.
I opened my eyes when my feet touched the ground. I was standing on a stone on the edge of a sparkling lake. Crystal-like objects shimmered in the water, and a warm breeze caused ripples to dance across the surface. The lake was surrounded by tall reeds moving with the breeze to create a natural harmony. Where am I?
“You’re in my backyard,” said a familiar voice behind me.
I turned and found a huge grin of crappy teeth. “Ira? What are you doing here, man?”
“Blondie was looking for you,” he deadpanned sarcastically. He was good at that sort of thing.
My girl came running through the reeds. As I knelt to pet her, she jumped in my arms and gave me the greatest kisses I had ever received. And just as quickly, she took off running through the reeds. She always liked that—running through tall bushes. It must have felt fun on her fur or something. Anytime she saw tall grass of any kind, she was gone. I watched her with a smile.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” said Ira.
“I can honestly say I’ve never seen anything like it. Or even imagined anything like it.”
“Totally different from being on those rocks in Joshua Tree, huh?”
Oh, my. I felt my knees get weak. I felt faint. I felt short of breath. I felt . . . I felt . . . “Ira? God?”
He just flashed me that big smile.
That grin that told me he knew more than I did. About anything. About everything. He was just Ira, so I just blurted out, “What the fuck, dude? What are you doing to me?”
He explained, “I can be anything you want me to be. I am your experiences, after all. Right now, you need me to be Ira.”
“Yeah, but when I was alive and knew Ira, was that you?”
“Maybe,” he said with that Ira grin that was nothing but trouble. “Everyone you meet, every experience you have, and every emotion you feel has some level of God in it, regardless of what you believe or don’t believe.”
We both stood overlooking the lake. I watched the crystals jump and the ripples dance. I watched Blondie splash in delight. I felt the warm breeze kiss my face. I felt safe. The perfection of the moment was so breathtaking that I think I nearly forgot to breathe.
Ira said, “Follow me.”
I didn’t give it a second thought as we started walking across the lake. Yeah, I was walking on water. Of course I was. Why not? I had, after all, just floated through a garden, and Ira was God. So why shouldn’t I just walk on water? At this point, it felt perfectly natural and normal. For what felt like effect, Blondie swam just in front of me and behind Ira. It made perfect sense to think of Ira as God.
We walked out into the middle of the lake, where a kind of lounge was set up. Two six-foot sofas faced each other on either side of a magnificently carved coffee table. Flanking the sofas and where someone might normally place potted plants or a ficus tree, reeds reached out of the water. If this were a room, art would have been hanging on the walls. Because we were in the middle of a lake, outside, the sky was the art. Shades of pinks, oranges, and reds framed our resting lounges as though we were about to sit in the middle of fire.
Ira said, “Please, sit.”
After hundreds and maybe thousands of $250 hours spent sitting on furniture just like this, I felt as though I was about to have one hell of a therapy session in the strangest living room I had ever seen.
Jokingly, I asked, “Is it okay if I lie down?”
“Whatever makes you most comfortable,” he said without a hint of a joke.
Oh. I guess I am about to have one hell of a therapy session. I stretched out on the couch, instinctively closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Just like all my meditation teachers had taught me. When I opened my eyes, Ira was gone. Sitting directly across from me was the wizard. “Where did Ira go?” I asked, sitting up.
“Just relax,” God said. “Nothing has changed. You see me as you want to see me. I’m in your image. People get that part confused all the time.”
I closed my eyes again. When I opened them, Blondie was sitting on the couch.
