- At 41, Rob Furber felt like he might be entering a midlife crisis.
- He's a self-proclaimed indie fan defined by '90s music and planned a trip to Kurt Cobain's memorial.
- The Seattle trip proved he was guilty of living in the past and that it was time to quit his 9-to-5.
I played around with a few ideas last year when it came time to tackle my burgeoning midlife crisis.
Purchase a secondhand convertible? Get some ink done? Perhaps travel the world? The bright idea I settled on was to pay my respects to the music icon of my youth.
Seattle has given us Bill Gates, Boeing, "Frasier," Starbucks, and grunge music, but among those "famous five," only one mattered to me. For a die-hard indie kid defined by '90s music, I was set on making a pilgrimage to the city that gave us Nirvana and going straight to the park that had become a shrine to Kurt Cobain.
I'm a man who has consistently failed to rise from bed with a jubilant leap and tends instead toward a tardy lollop accompanied by a scowl. Cobain was bestowed with hero status for being the patron saint of slackers.
Next year marks the 30th anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death
He was found dead in a greenhouse above the garage at his Lake Washington home on April 8, 1994 — though the coroner said he had died on April 5 — and some of his ashes were scattered in the nearby Wishkah River. As he has no grave, fans visit Seattle's Viretta Park, which borders the house where he lived with Courtney Love.
I timed my arrival for midafternoon, figuring no self-respecting fan would pitch up before midday given everything he stood for.
In the early '90s, Cobain's raw, tortured voice reached out to those alienated by the saccharine smiles of the prepackaged pop acts that blotted out almost everything else in the music charts.
Idolized by Gen Xers, he and his music were seen as part of people's own disenfranchised, apathetic youth, which effortlessly progressed in my case to a disenfranchised, apathetic adulthood, as well as a dispiriting office 9-to-5 existence.
It was a brisk, overcast spring Seattle day, and my initial impression of Viretta Park was that it resided in an extremely affluent area. I later discovered the Starbucks founder, Howard Schultz, used to live on the other side of the park from Cobain and Love, according to The Seattle Times.
It was immediately recognizable as the Cobain memorial, with two wooden benches etched in graffiti messages from fans.
"Your presence is needed right now in our world," one said.
Nirvana fans span generations.
Slowly but surely, a trickle of mourners came. Within an hour, at least 30 had come and gone. Seeing so many younger fans pitch up, many of whom must have discovered Nirvana retrospectively, was a striking reminder of how music spans generations. A steady stream of teens and early-20-somethings paid their respects, dressed with that timeless "alt-rock" élan — black T-shirts, dyed hair, and assorted piercings heavily to the fore.
Cobain was an icon of my youth. There was something about his voice. It was very real and spoke to me. Sometimes you couldn't quite make out what he was singing, which added to his mystique.
I was left pondering his legacy. Much like other musicians and artists who died before their time, Cobain's suicide at a tragically young age has given greater resonance to his life and work. "Nevermind," released in September 1991 as Nirvana's second studio album, jettisoned grunge to the mainstream, contributing to a period in music that, for a certain person of a certain vintage, has come to find lasting significance.
Cobain's death was almost a defining moment. I saw it as the day the music died. He joined the macabre "27 Club," made up of famous artists who died at 27, including Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and, later, Amy Winehouse. Since then, it's felt like something has gone missing. Had I misplaced it, or had the world?
The trip helped me grow up
Now, here I was in my 40s still trying to cling to everything Cobain stood for. I could see I was guilty of living in the past — essentially a man-boy who refused to grow the hell up. Yet as an incredibly potent symbol of youth, his elixir was barreled deep inside and would forever remain a part of me.
Rather than consign it to history, I left Viretta Park with new-found vigor, acknowledging the spirit Cobain came to encapsulate could still be applied to middle age.
Things had started to fade away, ambition had gotten waylaid, and I had been sleepwalking my way through life, a cog in someone else's wheel. It was time for me to burn brightly once more by quitting my job and starting my own business.
Got a personal essay about living abroad, parenting, or a midlife crisis that you want to share? Get in touch with the editor: akarplus@businessinsider.com.
