Mourning David Bowie and Making Room

This is the note I sent my team yesterday. I am posting it here because I want to be back here, with you. I miss you.


David Bowie was the antidote to little boxes for those of us who could not make our limbs fit into them. He made room for misfits and kooks (“we believe in you!”), and gave us permission to be Other, even if we weren’t sure which form of Other we were. He piped a catchy, dance-able soundtrack into the isolation chambers of attic rooms, barns and backyards where we were awkwardly, determinedly, evolving. While his persona invited scrutiny, he shrugged off the incessant demand for classification. He was Ziggy Stardust, but only when he wanted to be. 

If there is a lesson for our day to lives, maybe it is this: innovation – even relentless re-invention – does not mean losing the thread of who we are. Those who hungered to know what David Bowie was were ultimately stuck with the singular reality that he was, always, David Bowie.

So what has ch ch ch changed? We’ve made a bit more room …  and we haven’t. Over the next few weeks, international immigration policy may hinge on which box the men who assaulted hundreds of women on New Year's Eve in Cologne will be put into. The vitriol of the US presidential campaign has contributed to freshly brutal stereotypes of men, women and kids; and in Canada, we are owning up to disparities based on race in how we treat families. If we can label what you are, we will know how to treat you. 

Bowie said, “tomorrow belongs to those who can hear it coming.” Let’s hope we like what we hear coming (and let’s not be afraid to change).