Beginnings begin with courage. These words came from my radio mere seconds before I switched it off. They stayed with me as I prepared to enter my den where I could psyche myself up to start a new year of writing.
Beginnings begin with courage. The words lingered. What need had I to be brave about? And more to the point, what great beginning was there for me at this stage in my life. I have never been one for making resolutions. Why should I stop doing something I enjoyed just because a calendar date had turned a page, or why should I start to do something I have never wanted to do? I just didn’t get it. I am a simple soul who thinks if something needed to be changed, do it – don’t wait for striking clocks.
Days later I was still digesting the radio’s words about beginnings needing courage when news of the death of an artist I loved came through the same speaker.
His lyrics told us we could be heroes – if just for one day. And we bright young things of that time believed him, I still do and even though he has now shrugged off his mortal coil, he continues to work his magic on me.
Like the time I was driving from somewhere to somewhere else and his deep voice broke the monotony of my journey with the words, ‘Ground control to Major Tom,’ and the countdown of the rocket’s lift-off echoed across my dashboard. Immediately I was transfixed by this almost operatic story about a hero, who had left our Earth. I remember smiling, feeling silly for laughing when ground control told Major Tom that he had ‘made the grade and that the papers wanted to know whose shirts he wore’.
Those apparently throwaway lyrics spoke volumes of how fragile humanity could be and the song takes us on a space oddity between ground control and Major Tom. Then my heart missed a beat when Major Tom’s transmission is reported to be breaking up – things were going wrong, very wrong.
My car continued to stop when I needed it to, start when it was safe to do so, change the gears, pull the handbrake on and off, and flick the necessary indicators. I don’t remember driving during that piece of music. I was out in space listening to this drama unfold – thinking of poor Major Tom and hearing the concern from ground control. ‘Tell my wife I love her very much,’ is followed by a chorus of, ‘She knows!!!’
By this time I am completely spellbound by Bowie’s artistry and even though our hero Major Tom is floating away, it is sung with beauty and the words, ‘Planet Earth is blue and there’s nothing I can do’ never felt completely final.
Perhaps it is the streak of optimism that I possess, or my passion for the mighty cosmos, I don’t know, but David Bowie and Major Tom will live forever in my heart.
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(c) 2024 Pat Barnett.
