"Free" time is a relative concept but it may be our biggest
available fortune, next to the capacity to love.

My measurable free time is limited by the vagaries and complexities
of modern life, something which doubtless affects a few other
r.m.b.'ers as well. When I can squeeze time, or steal a spare
moment that doesn't quite belong to me, I parcel it out amongst my
varied recreational interests...one of which happens to be the
Beatles.

"Recreational"...that's a laugh. Anyone who knows me knows that
it's far beyond a recreation. Some folks have accused me of
purusing it like a religion.

No question, the Fabs (a name coined by George Harrison himself)  
have been in my mind and being almost thirty-seven now. Perhaps
that seems odd. Perhaps it's rare to find a personal passion that's
so long-lived.

Possibly it's even more odd to keep these four men in my heart in a 
place reserved for those dearest to me. 

I don't do it deliberately. After all this time, it's natural, like
breathing. I hear their songs in my head---seems like I always
have---no matter where I go. I can conjur up their faces, their
accents, their words and music wherever I happen to be, even in
sleep.

Occasionally they come by for a visit in dreams---usually
impeccably dressed in their Cardin suits, tonsorially groomed as
they were in 1963-1964; polite, funny, irreverent, charming. We
have tea and they talk about their music; sometimes I ask John
about his writing.  Usually that's it; that's enough for dreams.

The night before last I had a vivid dream that George was saying
goodbye to me...not bodily but as a presence, with a kind of
inexplicable acknowledgment between the two of us. Now why should
he care, even his spiritual self? I'm just a fan given to
occasional prosodic excesses, with not much else to recommend me
other than a love of good compost.

Nevertheless the vision was clear in my dream. Or rather I should
say that I couldn't see George himself but I saw metallic and
shimmering lights, much like the aurora borealis that I flew
through once over the North Pole on my first trip to England. The
lights didn't look like George of course but they had his very
essence embedded in their visual fabric; somehow I knew this. Still
the communique was meta-visual, meta-semantic, beyond any kind of
interchange that I can describe.

Like in any religion, there have always been mystical things that have
happened to me since the Fabs have been part of my life. I've
always thought that being at the right age to hear them in their
first-state glory is one such inexplicable miracle.

Enlightenment comes via many paths. I wouldn't dare to suggest to
someone that "worship"---however one wants to define it---is
relegated to established religious avenues. My own interpretation
of what the Beatles mean to me might well seem like blasphemy to a
more orthodox believer in established faith. So be it; use
"appreciation" if that makes more sense. I know the difference
between George Harrison and Buddha/Zeus/Amon-Re/Adonai, even if my
prose doesn't always show it.

And it won't show today, faced as I am with saying farewell to
someone I loved...someone I never met, someone (some might say) I
had no right to love, given the distance between us.

But distance can be illusory when something like the Beatles'
artistry binds us all together. No one is *not* family at a time
like this.

Perhaps you'd say that art merely reflects religious truth, as
provided through the grace of one's deity-of-choice. That's
fitting. If life is part of a divine plan, then surely it's a holy
act to create such art, in which the beauties of the universe may
shine forth like the coming of the sun. And surely it's equally a
gift to receive such harmonic beatitude---to appreciate the wonders
of mankind through a mirror of human effort. If you believe in a
God, then you may see God through such a simple thing as a song.

The song isn't God; neither is its composer. You know that; I don't
think anyone else in this forum is confused about it either. And
surely George knew it too.

I'm reminded of something John Lennon said all those years ago
about religion in an interview that's often misread and
misunderstood.  John commented ironically on the fluidity of divine
hysteria, mentioning that Beatlemania seemed more popular than
Christianity, and that Christianity would eventually "vanish and
shrink". Read his statement closely and you'll see a hint of John's
despair that fans seemed to have lost their spiritual focus. That
was crosstalk from John's *own* sense of loss at the time---his
restless searching for something meaningful in the circus of his
circumstance.

George survived this manic maelstrom that affected all the Beatles,
thankfully, and his words suggest that he knew what it was all
about.

"For the Beatles", George said in "The Beatles Anthology", "our
lives were a very heightened version of that: of how to learn about
love and hate, and up and down; and good and bad, and loss and
gain....Whatever happened is good as long as we've learnt
something. It's only bad if we didn't learn: 'Who am I? Where am I
going to? Where have I come from?"

Is there any right or proper way to react when we lose someone who
will never really leave us?

If I couldn't find my voice, if I couldn't thank George Harrison
for the years of joy which have been mine because of his music, I'm
sure he'd understand. But if I write these words, do I risk being
told that I've make a fool of myself? Perhaps. But it's important
to say them now.

I owe these four fellows more than I can express, let alone fathom,
and I'll miss George more than I can say. The Fabs' songs have
helped me through depths as well as heights. I owe them unbounded
reverence.  I'm here to celebrate---even to worship, if this comes
closest to the truth---in whatever fashion I can manage, the
marvelous musical expression of the human soul, and to thank George
for all that he's given us.

----
saki@ucla.edu