Beyonce Bone Dust
Embrace the Indefinite Here before the Ineffable Elsewhere
Sometimes, when the green monster of jealousy is on my back and I find myself feeling heavy under the weight of comparison and self-criticism, I think about how one day Beyonce’s bones will turn to dust.
This isn’t some sort of macabre ill-wishing to the Queen Bee (long may she reign).
Bey is a goddess and one of the best performers of my generation and she seems legitimately kind and her hair flows like spun silk and her skin is like the honeyed streets of heaven and her voice is like butter meets love meets sorrow meets rage meets range.
But, sometimes, it’s hard for me to see other artists succeed. As someone who feels born to perform, born to write, and born to sing, I often just don’t understand why instead of doing those things for financial solvency and artistic acclaim I instead have had to spend my days writing about anal gland impactions in dogs.
Seeing other artists thriving, seeing the commercial creative success of my contemporaries, I’m ashamed to admit it--I frequently consume a bitter helping of heartache.
To be fair (to myself) I really, really, really do love to see humans thrive, and win, and triumph. So when I come across other artists doing all of the above and I feel an unpleasant pang, it’s never really from a place of “why them?” but rather, “why not me, too?”
Also, there’s an element of the Puritan work ethic that floods my art-soul with toxins like poisoned water. Like if only I had worked harder, somehow done better, acted different-er…then things would have “worked out” the way I wanted them to. Do you get this, too?
Ohhh the cruel double-edged sword of shame and self-comparison
Anyway. Back to Beyonce.
Beyonce is amazing. Beyonce is revered. Beyonce is a multi-million dollar music mogul who has a career full of accolades, a fervent fan base, gads of money, a rap-icon husband, beautiful children, and a physical beauty that makes most women tell themselves “Uncool, DNA.”
Beyonce probably wants for nothing she can buy--from Cristale bottles to sprawling homes to luxury vacations to designer clothes to spa days.
Beyonce probably has never even had to utter the words “anal gland impaction,” let alone write about them in lengthy detail.
Seemingly, Beyonce has everything.
And yet...years from now, years that seem far away but will go by in the fastest of breaths in and out, Beyonce will be bone dust. Beyonce (as we know her on this corporal plane) will be gone.
Just like me.
Just like you.
Just like your friends, your sister, your kid, your favorite writer, your childhood crush--all of our fleshbags will one day decompose in the deepest of earth or float as particles in a winding breeze as our souls move on to the Ineffable Elsewhere.
And then where will all of our striving and stress and self-judgment and thoughts of success be? Gone, dissolving in air as the breath leaves our lungs.
So, right now, it might seem like The Fates love Beyonce the best and some of us they just merely tolerate.
But at the end of the mortal coil, Beyonce and you and I will all be the same--compatriots on an infinite playing field that was level all along except for our finite perspectives.
I guess my point is: our worries and triumphs will all mean nothing someday, truly dissolved. I know they “mean something” today, but who’s to know if today’s all we’ve got? Are we making the meaning we really wanna make out of stuff?
For me, I’m trying to live with an awareness that the Ineffable Elsewhere isn’t so far off, and so I guess now’s the time to appreciate the Indefinite Here—anal dog impaction and all.
Love,
Annie
P.S In all honesty: I’ve had some issues enjoying the Indefinite Here lately (which maybe I’ll talk about next week.) But for now, I’d love you to tell me: How are you currently enjoying your Now-ness?
THREE GOOD THINGS
I know some of my musical compatriots have told me they don’t get the hype but—c’mon!— THIS PERFORMANCE IS GOBSMACKING. The breath control. The singing WHILE DANCING! (I could never. I get winded taking on the phone while walking to my kitchen.) The sheer “here-ness” she embodies. You don’t see her thinking AT. ALL. Simply being in the moment like a true performing legend.
If you haven’t watched Season 3 of Never Have I Ever, it’s a pretty sweet, funny show about friends, grief, and growing up. (Plus, it might just make you feel relieved that your high school days are far behind you.)
I brought back multiple jars of this stuff from Europe only to realize that you can get it in the states (and tbh, probably online). Get thee to a local or internet grocery mercantile and buy this spicy mustard!
