If the sending of that gift had been so important for me (rightly or wrongly, and that is not the issue here), it was only because what had happened with Elton John in the 70s had so deeply and dearly marked me. This is why in 2017, I had been so much saddened to see that my gift and what it told meant nothing to the British artist -his silence attesting that fact. I had accepted that reality. But having to put up more than one year later with the indelicate, discreditable and unfair initiative of one of his executives indisputably proved to be the last straw that breaks the camel's back.
On top of the fact that the fate that my consignment met deeply hurt me, I have remained uncertain about the singer’s upstream degree of involvement in his employee’s behaviour. I shall never know if he ever was aware of the way his executive planned to handle things, and how she finally proceeded ; if he ever knew about what had really happened. But ultimately, these questions no longer matter. His lack of reaction to my book sending is an answer that encapsulate all others.

Today, in order to conclude for good on the misunderstandings and disappointments that My Elton Years generated quite unwillingly, and in order to draw a definitive line under that story, come to my mind the words and the music of a heartfelt and beautiful composition by the great American singer-songwriter Patty Larkin. It summarizes perfectly what I feel.

 

 

I believe that My Elton Years was a good thing.

But considering the outcome of my shipment to Elton John, I wish I could add now to Patty Larkin’s reverie this short statement, as a conclusion to the episode.

I also know a bad thing when I see it
And I know it's a good thing to let go

Because there are toxic things in life that one must stop handling, at some point. They poison the present and corrupt the past.

And the duty of remembrance done today teaches me that it is time now to turn the page of a book where the poem did not rhyme. And to relegate what Elton John's firm did to me to the the past and ancient history.

Just as it is time to forget that this firm's uncalled for initiative was the only feedback that My Elton Years ever elicited. Because none ever came from its rightful recipient.

And among all things, that is the only one that really matters in the end, and that I still recall today. Because that is the only one that truly stabbed the heart, where all dreams are born.

And where they finally die, when parched by oblivion and blown away by the wind droughts of indifference.

A bad thing. To let go