![]() ![]() When I talked to Apollonia about it a couple years ago, her memories only added to my romanticization of the not-Lake Minnetonka scene. And of course the Kid comes back for her after all, pulling up his motorcycle and waiting for her to start climbing aboard before pretending to take off again. It’s a mating ritual played out in skin-tight leather pants and set against a distinctly Minnesota backdrop, with the water shimmering in the autumn sun and the luminous fall leaves only adding to the seduction. The scene feels mean, but also somehow playful, and obviously sexual. “That ain’t Lake Minnetonka,” Prince says, eyebrow raised, then ditches her on his motorcycle, leaving her standing alone naked, shivering and furious. She’s eager to earn his respect and so she strips down to her panties and leaps in, only to discover that the water is ice-cold and she’s been set up to look like a fool. Ever since Prince died, I couldn’t stop thinking about the scene in Purple Rain where he tells Apollonia to purify herself in Lake Minnetonka. ![]() ![]() I wondered if I’d work up the courage to actually do it. I’d had this journey on my mind for weeks. But there was no reason for me to be out at the Park this day, so I kept on heading south, further and further until the freeway exit ramps turned to stoplights turned to stop signs, green grass and harvested cornfields flooding the horizon. I-394 to 169 South to the Crosstown, which I usually take to get to Paisley Park. Without thinking I steered my car toward Chanhassen, a drive I’ve made more times than I can count. Driving, at least, feels like something resembling forward motion, and it was a nice enough day to watch the apple orchards and pumpkin stands whiz by. It was a Thursday, and I was supposed to be writing, but the words haven’t been coming easy these days. Holding still hasn’t really been making it better, so a few weeks back, I got in my car and started driving. But adrift in a sea of grieving souls, nowhere has felt quite safe enough to get truly, mind-numbingly sad about the realization that my own relationship to him, my writing about him, and my enjoyment of his music will never feel the same.Īnd so I ended up suspended in something that I suppose you could call a funk, though there hasn’t been much funky about it. He is and will always be a global landmark, an instantly recognizable symbol, and it makes sense that everyone who looked up to him wants pay homage to him in their own way. To ride this excruciating building analogy to the top floor, spending these past few months attending all the tribute shows, beautiful and emotional and epic as they may have been, and returning to Paisley Park as a tourist has felt like stumbling through the gift shop of something too beautiful to be captured on a postcard or in a souvenir snow globe. Maybe that’s selfish, or provincial, or Minnesotan. My mind can’t square the fact that the Prince I knew - in my headphones, playing in front of me on stage all those nights, joking as he walked the halls of his studios - was the Prince everyone knew. How could I explain to anyone what it felt like to lose an icon that I also somehow viewed as a local treasure and respected as a human and a friend? But this was something different it was massive, but also oddly intimate. I’ve lost family members, and I’ve watched the people closest to me grapple with the deepest, darkest depths of loss. And somehow it didn’t occur to me until two days later, when I finally worked up the courage to go online and look through bleary eyes at the pictures of every recognizable landmark and statue across the globe glowing purple, that I’d been gazing up at the most well-known skyscraper in the world this whole time. It was like all we wanted was to climb up inside that building, to touch his star, to reach out and feel him as he drifted away. When Prince died, I felt it from the ground floor: in the welled-up eyes of my friends and colleagues who had just lost their hometown hero outside of Paisley Park as we all crumpled and in the bending, swaying mass of thousands of people who couldn’t seem to get close enough to First Avenue after the sun went down that night. For some reason I couldn’t stop staring at it, couldn’t stop thinking about how it applies to a whole blizzard of other thoughts that have been clouding my mind these days. ![]()
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