Whatever happened to La Femme Nikita?
I mean what really happened?
I know the show was cancelled, of course. From one season to the next, it simply went off the air. But what really happened?
Shows come and go all the time. Products come and go all the time. And companies even come and go all the time. But why? And what made it happen?
I loved that show. And who didn’t love the Bridget Fonda/Gabriel Byrne movie on which it was based, Point of No Return?
With my curly hair, I also loved the Norelco hot comb in my early years. I could keep my normal hair, which, alas I was born with; and, for special occasions, wash it, blow it, and hot comb it into a controllable Kennedy-esque front wave within 30 minutes. I must say, with all due modesty, that it was quite successful.
When I found out that Norelco was discontinuing the product, I started buying as many as I could find. I bought seven or eight, which lasted me for about two years. But, at the end of the day, they were gone and I could find no more.
I lamented the loss of Nikita. I lamented the loss of Robert Hall, when it closed down its boys’ clothing stores in south Jersey. I lamented the loss of Norelco’s hot comb.
And I wondered about the people behind those creations who conjured them into reality and saw them take life, grow, and die.
Am I a simple Miniver Cheevy lamenting the loss of each season, or is there a special lesson here?
The Buddhists have some learning I suspect when we attach to the moment. It has something to do with the unassailable passage of the river over the rocks and trying to grab hold of the water along the way. And, in a very intellectual way, I get it. But it doesn’t make the loss as we pass through life any less real, or frankly painful.
I’ve lost friends. I’ve lost associates. I’ve lost partners. And I’ve lost products and services which I conjured out of nothing and made into something. The hubris is tangible, yet palpably pathetic in its introspection.
So where do I go from here?
Options?
1. Recognize it’s life and change is inevitable.
2. Rebel and seek redemption.
3. Look to build something eternal that can’t or won’t erode through time.
4. Accept the consequence of human arrogance when it pretends to believe it can build something eternal that can’t or won’t erode through time.
5. Give up and stop blogging.
6. All of the above.
7. None of the above.
8. #1, #2, #3, #4!!!
You choose!
I miss La Femme Nikita. I miss the Norelco hot comb. I miss Robert Hall.
And I miss my friends, associates and family I’ve groomed these many years.
Which option I choose in my life is mine, of course. I just wish the process were a wee bit easier.