First of all, I'm great with analogies, and I have one which covers just about everyone among the 1100-strong crowd who gathered at Seattle's Showbox music venue on June 2, 2011 in honor of Carly Henley.
It does require a little concentration, but if your attention span is up to it, you'll be enlightened:
Start by clicking on this link. Once there, you are surely having your doubts when the picture is that of a prominent feature on the Vancouver, Canada skyline. Read the final sentence at that link while referencing the photo there.
Then consider your standard soda can (or beer, if you must). Think, also, of this thing, used for saving space in recycling. If you've squashed aluminum cans then you know that it can be no easy task to crush a fully-intact and undented empty aluminum can. Yet you also know that after making just the slightest dent in that can, you can easily squash the can with minimal effort.
In a way that can is like the environment which surrounds a human life: It has two ends, and walls which are ideally undented during the path from one end to the other, but which are still very delicate, precious, and rendered "imperfect" rather easily.
The music-themed gathering of June 2, 2011 served as added assurance to all of those closely or remotely connected with Carly Henley's life that the environment all around her was structurally sound for her entire time on this earth. As that's who the attendees were - they WERE Carly's environment...
It made obvious sense that such a peaceful gathering would have music as its backbone. While the musical acts were great, it was the outpouring of care and support in the person of hundreds wearing "Love Wins" t-shirts in honor of Carly, and the tame group as a whole which made the environment so special.
I stress once again that I never even knew of Carly Henley while she was alive on this earth. I am very confident that because her own close environment was kept structurally sound by all of those she knew, it is considerably possible to extrapolate much of her life from the time since Carly's passing.
A vast majority of those who evolve to take their own lives are easily identified as people whose personal environments have been structurally flawed by a lack of caring, or by evil-doers in their surroundings. There just isn't any hint of anything or anybody that ever wronged Carly Henley to a life-altering degree.
Carly personified such a rare combination of major factors including the following:
*** Her life reached its end while her peers were in their prime (so they could, really, appreciate her in greater numbers, more significantly and more obviously than might have been the case 60 years down the path)
*** She was so well represented and preserved on the internet (how many others to date have BOTH lived most of their lives during the internet age AND passed away already?)
*** Carly had physical appeal that first caused most to believe they should err on the side of taking interest, and then let time decide whether to maintain that interest
*** She somehow found the means to remain earthy and grounded, perhaps for her own self-perceived flaws creating "approachability" in someone whose appearance might first make onlookers expect otherwise
*** Once armed with that earthy aura, Carly knew no limits with regard to the scores of people she could draw to her circles
*** Finally, she was taken from this earth right near a point from which she could have soared to any height in just about every aspect of life
Others could in large numbers envision getting near to being LIKE Carly in many ways, they could ENVY the life she was living, or they could dream of being WITH her. RARE is that combination in somebody whose life has ended, and about whom we can observe all of those things.
Carly seemed to have given much of that to herself, over time, but the sum of those individual elements could not have been so great had her environment from start to finish been significantly flawed by prominent individuals around her. So on the night of June 2, people all around her were gathering to celebrate Carly's music and her life. What they retained most was deepening assurance that the rest of her human environment thought as much of her as did any individual. The whole environmental structure was sound for Carly's short but deeply rewarding time on this earth.
The specifics of the evening went like this:
A fun and festive crowd lined up outside to get into the venue, and, eventually, after a traditional admonishment about "not smoking weed in the venue" by a bouncer outside (about as appropriate in this case as was the frisking of 9yo girls dressed in pink at a "Tiffany" concert in the 1980's - translate that to "Rebecca Black" today) [side note: perfectly understandable - but the crowd was that light-hearted and non-threatening]) , the line finally began to move.
Once inside, concert-goers were faced with a souvenir stand hosted by some of Carly's very best friends, who were selling first and foremost the new CD ("Love The Skin You're In") in addition to numerous catchy t-shirts adorned with "Love Wins" or "Love The Skin You're In". This stand was hopping throughout much of the evening.
There was very little seating outside of the bars and most of the crowd was still quite content, as I'm guessing that most had been to the venue before.
The show was hosted by a pair of local radio personalities ("Ron and Don" - who have added considerably to the area presentation of Carly's story, when other media, as usual, opted not to mention suicide {some of their related podcasts are worth hearing} )
As the evening's festivities commenced, Carly's entire family was brought up on stage and her mother and father each took the microphone and did impressive jobs of sorta bringing everybody together and including the whole crowd as being important.
Next was a brief intro to the Rain City Rock Camp, to which the proceeds from the evening would be donated. A performer from the Rain City Rock Camp kicked-off the evening followed by a string of artists, many of whom would sing a few of their own songs and then perform the one for which they had collaborated with Carly and her cousins on the new CD.
An especially pleasant musician was Natalie Closner, whose appearance, though considerably overwhelmed by curls, was that of a bubbly, vibrant person who was perfectly at-ease in front of the crowd. I'm confident there is a close similarity to Canadian artist Jann Arden in the song Natalie Closner performed on Carly's CD.
Each time there was a lull, caused by soundchecks and/or a change in musicians, Carly's CD would play softly in the background.
One by one, various musicians completed their sets and soon it was time for Carly's accomplished cousins to take the stage. Right away they summoned their younger sister, Maggie, front and center. After regaling the crowd with a silly song they and Carly wrote when Maggie and Carly (born one day apart) were about 12(?), it was time for what was perhaps the musical highlight of the evening.
In much the same tone as is found on the new CD (no easy task, that), Maggie performed the ballad that is "Star", and you could be sure that just about everybody in attendance was thinking about Carly as Maggie sang. Some were videotaping the performance and cameras were going off every second.
During much of the evening I could turn slightly and see Carly's mother, who during (cousin) Maggie's performance was alternately being embraced by family and close friends. It was so touching...
That song has vast potential far beyond gatherings of Carly's friends, and I certainly allow for the chance that Maggie might serve it up better than anybody else. This is the type of a tune that "Love Songs with Delilah" hostess Delilah Rene should be dedicating to various female callers who tell of lost loves.
Were it me, I would have saved Maggie's performance until later, but the Henley clan then marched right into some of their better efforts, with Tess taking the main mike first for a set followed by a rousing effort from brother Carson. These people just know what they're doing, and they know with great familiarity those who surround them on stage. The crowd was riveted through most or all of these performances (save for a couple of sound checks which were too lengthy).
The evening eventually wound down near to midnight on this Thursday evening, but the appreciation for Carly Henley lingered in the air long after significant numbers of attendees had departed for slumber in preparation for full Fridays.
Lots of people were in attendance who were immediately recognizable from Carly's internet persona. Among them I noticed a guy whose hairdo was instantly familiar just from an oft-seen photo of him sitting in the backseat of Carly's car. Carly's nearest and dearest were ever so prominent including her brother, sister, aforementioned trio of cousins, aunts and uncles, father, grandmother.
Everybody seemed to fit together in some form of synchronicity, all of which had no doubt been inspired at some point by one Carly D. Henley.
It was a very unique experience to witness, resulting in large part from many of the non-musical factors listed up above. My last task of the evening was to tuck a copy of Carly's CD into a pre-readied mailing envelope and then into a mailbox for delivery to a dear friend in a distant state.
Clearly Carly Henley won't soon be forgotten by anybody whose life she touched during her brief time on this earth.
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