Star Quality

Why do the brightest spirits lead the most desperately troubled lives? Is their light so bright that, by law of contrast, their darkness must be opaque? And why do they often perish before their time?

The list of luminaries is a long one, but the most enduring legend may be that of Marilyn Monroe. Even I am fascinated by her story, perhaps because it was so tragic, but more likely because I want to understand the paradox of a spirit so pure trying to survive in a world so impure that it broke her.

Imagine, burning so fiercely in life that your memory lives longer than you did. Not to suggest that she was pure in the “virgin-snow” way of being pure; to the contrary, I think she was far savvier and more practical than society at the time allowed her to be. So why did she choose a traumatic childhood and 1950s Hollywood?

Only she knows for sure. It doesn’t stop the speculation, the judgments or the opinions, but no one who embarks on a quest to discover the real Marilyn will unearth the diamond that was her true essence. She was most definitely a light being in a human experience. She had a purpose for being here, she chose her time for a reason, and we will never know what she took with her when she left.

The same can be said of so many others, a few who were global icons compared to the many bright stars who were special to none but their own. This life is a struggle. Even if you achieve your dream, it won’t be easy to get or maintain. But really, wasn’t Marilyn’s dream the same as Princess Diana’s or Michael Jackson’s, Philip Seymour Hoffman’s or JFK’s, my own dear niece’s or everyone else’s, for that matter? The dream of all dreams, the quietest to admit, the easiest to want, and the hardest to make real:

To be loved, to be valued, to be accepted as we are … and, for some, to die trying.

August 5 is the nth anniversary of Marilyn Monroe’s death. Hers is the eternal mystery, a life celebrated in public, suffered in private, and ended abruptly. I think of her and wonder how she might have fared in my time? Not much better, I decide. Her tragedy is everyone’s tragedy, for we are all born stars. Some will shine, some will twinkle, some will burn out, and some will implode.

The things we do for love.