Ashes to ashes, stardust to stardust.

I hate that I'm writing this.

By now you've gotten the terrible and sad news about our hero, Mr. David Bowie. I've spent the day processing it with tear-stained cheeks, trying to corral my thoughts and find the right words. A lot of beautiful tributes have been paid today, and I in no way believe I have the ability to say how I feel as perfectly as has already been done.

I may have come late to the Bowie party, but that does not diminish the heartache and the heaviness that has taken me over today. I'm grateful to have shared the same planet with him, and to have been able to experience so much joy in the gifts he gave to us all.

Tonight, I'm thinking of his family and dearest friends and hoping they'll find peace. I'm thinking of the cast of Lazarus and the monumental task ahead of them, performing his songs this evening. And I'm feeling the loss myself.

I haven't yet begun listening to what is now the final installment of David Bowie's creative legacy. I had planned on starting that today, and giving it the same two weeks I gave to all of his other albums before writing about where it takes me. Obviously, we already know how this story ends. But I don't know how I will arrive at the inevitable ending, and so I intend to take this journey in the same way I did all the others.

My first listening of Blackstar will be tonight at 9:25.

I look at my watch, it says 9:25, and I think, "Oh God, I'm still alive" - Time, from Aladdin Sane, 1973.