When artists die and go wherever wandering souls end up, my theory is that they are tasked with painting the sky each day.
I say “tasked,” but to them, it isn’t work.
Some of my favorite quotes include, “If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life” and “You are what you love.”
They’re my favorites because they reassure me that there is happiness waiting for me when I grow—into the age of to-go coffee cups and the burden of forever.
The quotes boast similar ideas: passion isn’t a chore, and we are defined by said passion.
Or is it a chore? Is passion actually loving something through the tedious facets?
They sound equally eloquent and profound to me.
When writers die and go wherever ambling souls cease, my theory is that they are tasked with writing the thoughts and ideas of curious people who feel too intensely.
Maybe headaches happen when the writers forget to decide who is writing whose thoughts, and I have five novels of anxiety being etched into my temples.
Maybe that’s why people feel bittersweet—overlapping, contradictory essays from great minds who can’t agree if I’m happy or sad.
Maybe the thoughts that fill my journals belong to Fitzgerald. I highly, completely, totally, undoubtedly doubt it, but it’d be pretty cool. I doubt it more as I write the words “pretty cool.”
When dancers die, they invent the choreography that reaches the mind of the person in charge. Musicians compose the harmonies that fill the ears of aspiring stars. Chefs leave behind their recipes. Architects leave their blueprints. Directors leave their storyboards. Gardeners leave their seeds.
When lovers die, their ghosts continue dancing through ballrooms when they are supposed to be empty. Piano players practicing alone are secretly supplying their music. The lovers don’t mind the mistakes and retries and mess-ups of the (not) alone pianist because they already spent their time with the polished, final product.
Their passion takes a new form in inspiration. Giving back to the thing that gave them life when they had it. Continuing to disseminate love into the world that taught them how to—through the thoughts of their successors.
This is not a commentary on the afterlife because I couldn’t make one if I tried. This is a commentary on love because I refuse to believe that love dies like people do.
People die simply, whether their lives are simple or not.
Love dies destructive, undying, exploding. Held back, held in, hidden. Try as it might, illicit devotion always explodes. Call it fireworks, call it the embers dashing through the windless air surrounding a flame, call it the pouring rain, call it rumbling thunder, call it an earthquake.
Call it what you want, but I refuse to believe that love dies with the bodies it lives in.
