This last month or so has been full of all kinds of experiences and events. Sometimes, I feel like I don’t get much of a chance to reflect on anything, but here I am going to discuss a particular experience. Recently I had the opportunity to visit Paisley Park, which is where the musician Prince lived and worked. As most of you know, he passed away over a year ago, and now they have opened up Paisley Park as a museum.
I am not going to discuss the details of what it looked like, but I really enjoyed the tour and a peek at Prince’s personal and professional life. As we were looking at different rooms, I was really impressed by some of his interior design. I was even thinking that I wished I had rooms decorated like his. Maybe Prince and I have more in common than I thought.
However, what I really started thinking about was how interesting his philosophy and creativity were. This was a person who performed “when the spirit moved him” and seemed to go with a spiritual flow. He was also a person who mentored and helped others – my guess is that we have no clue how much philanthropy he was instrumental in producing. While a lot of people have heard his music and that is all they know, I find it fascinating to look deeper at this complex person. To understand (if that is even possible) his motivations, his goals, his hopes, and his dreams and how that influenced his art – that seems to me a better way to appreciate what Prince brought to our world. While we have his art and Paisley Park, what bums me out now is the loss of all the other things Prince would have created had he lived longer. In all, I am so glad I had the chance to visit and learn more about Prince’s intriguing life.