Update on Amy Winehouse's death

Apologies for digressing from my travel posts, I feel a burning desire to post on the death of Amy Winehouse one more time. Return to travel mid-week, I promise.

RIP, Amy ...

While in Miami this week, I picked up both Frank and Back to Black. I have to admit I am partial to Back to Black. It reminded me of the hours I spent drinking wine, smoking cigarettes and singing to The Supremes back in the late 70s with my best friend, Kathy. God rest your soul, Kathy. 

She was shot to death by her husband in 1984. I had moved to Florida by then. She was the best friend I ever had and I wrote an unfinished mystery novel, pulling my pain from the days around her death. Pain I still carry. 

Maybe that is why the death of Amy Winehouse hit me so hard. Or maybe it is due to my addiction problems or my husband's. I don't know. I became a recovering alcoholic at the age of 31. Maybe it was the struggles with codependency while I watched my husband struggle with his addiction for 8 years of our marriage. I truly do know the pain. Sometimes I was crazier than he was while I watched on in helplessness. The only thing that finally worked was locking him out, refusing to see him and walking away. Somehow with God's grace, he found his way. 

The best article I have found on Amy is from Rabbi Shais Taub. Thank you, Rabbi, for your profound words. They do bring me peace. 

Rabbi Shais Taub's article: Was the World Powerless to Stop Amy Winehouse?

I always remember, "but for the grace of God, there go I."

A tribute to Amy Winehouse

I admit I never even knew who Amy Winehouse was when she was alive. How sad for me. But with all the publicity of her death, I went back and listened to Rehab and Back to Black and other songs and became enraptured with her music. She was an incredible singer with an amazing voice who sang from her soul. Her voice was bold, in your face, raw, and painful. And the photos of her from slim to emaciated, from confident and smiling to tense and afraid to the final video of her last concert breaks my heart. She was a young woman who had not found a way out of her addictions and time ran out before she had a plan. 

I was also intrigued and slightly disgusted by all her tattoos, an art quite like graffiti - placing images where they don't belong (in my puritanical mind.) So this post is a tribute to Amy Winehouse and her tattoos. 

I found a website that sells temporary tattoos of all the ones that Amy had.

http://www.tattoofashion.com/acatalog/Amy_Winehouse.html 

They have a combo pack of her most prominent tattoos.
1. Amy's Girl
2. Daddy's Horseshoe
3. Cynthia
4. Fan Girl
5. Lightening Bolt
6. Love Hearts
7. Feather
8. Never Clip My Wings
9. Hello Sailor
10. Blakes


Online, I found a tattoo shop in Lancashire, UK that specializes in tattoo graffiti. So now I am learning about another type of graffiti after trying to come to grips with the kind on the wall. Now there is graffiti of the body as well. 

http://www.skingraffititattoos.co.uk/

Last night I dreamed that I had tattoos on both arms with my name wrapped around my forearm in a black script like graffiti. In my dream, I had fallen asleep and woken up with the tattoos and was frantic to have them removed but couldn't figure out how. This is a dream worth interpreting.

Some info on dream interpretations ....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_interpretation

In conclusion, I would like to express my deepest sympathies to the family and friends of Amy Winehouse. Having been around addiction for a good part of my life, I really feel for those that remain behind. Some people just never get it before it is too late. Her story reminds me of another great singer, Billie Holiday. She has always been my favorite.


Some info on Billie ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billie_Holiday

All the publicity focused on what Amy did, instead of why she did it. She was not comfortable in this world and I hope she can find peace in the next. Hopefully she will be remembered around the world not for how she lived, but the gifts she left us here on Earth. 

http://www.amywinehouse.com/ 

and 
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2011/07/amy-winehouse-an-appreciation.html 

Added July 30th .....
great article from Russell Brand on Amy
http://www.russellbrand.tv/2011/07/for-amy/

Experimenting: my feet are made for walking

The photo of my two feet was taken in Vejer de la Frontera, Spain. I doubled it in Picasa 3 and put it side by side as a background for my blog title.

I also changed the background color so it was more readable with the dark letters.