Genius and Gelato

Today I was in a gelato store getting my first taste of gelato (I know, right?) and I heard Smells Like Teen Spirit piped in over the sound system. Well, it was the song, to be sure, but it was a strange cover using some old school Italian cadence and instruments. It was a very odd feeling listening to it like that and it got me to thinking about Kurt Cobain.

I love Kurt Cobain. I use that in present tense with intention. He is gone, but in a very real way, who he was is still all around us. His animus is still present. A piece of him is still alive. In any case, despite the fact that I have to look up the lyrics to his songs in order to understand them all (sort of), and that he really belongs to a different generation, I feel his music as if it were written specifically for me. I can feel it in every cell of my body.

So, I start having a conversation with Tina about his genius and at the very moment I am beginning to wonder if we overuse that word, I realize that we do not. At least not in this case.

Kurt Cobain is a genius…was a genius. His genius was in connecting us with our wilder self. The part of us all that just does not fit into starched shirts and minivans. A sleeping piece of up wakes up to his music. He speaks directly to that part in us…and that is his genius.

What is yours?

xo,