Getting In Touch with Your Rubber Soul

At the start of another bruisingly hot day here in Maine, where it just is not supposed to be this hot, a host of complaints are jostling for position at the forefront of my brain, each wanting to be the first one I notice and verbalize, thus pushing it out into the world and giving it validity. Since I am alone in my house this morning there is nobody to listen, so they're just stuck in there, rumbling around and making each other and me more miserable every second. This is where meditation helps. It silences the voices (not that I hear voices inside my head, don't get me wrong it's just an analogy), at least for the 15 minutes or so that I do it. It's magical, really, you must try it sometime if you haven't already.

The sad thing is that it has taken me so very long to fully acknowledge and understand what a boon meditation can be and would have been during my Turbulent Years. I blame this oversight on the Beatles.

Starting out Paul was my favorite, his mindless, happy love songs making me think that finding a boyfriend and an eventual mate was all-important. I wasted so many years doing that. Then I got sick of all his "silly love songs" (Paul's words, not mine) and graduated to John. That's when it seemed clear that drugs and acid were the way to go, after all, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" was clearly not about about jewelry. I did as instructed and had lots of fun, heard great music and experienced an occasional profound insight here and there depending on the quality of the drug I had ingested. I was happy with John as my mentor. When in 1980 he was killed by a crazed fan, I was bereft and left floundering.

With no choice -- Ringo offered little, except that one incredible drum solo in "Carry That Weight -- I came around to George, who had recognized early on the wisdom of the mantra and all that other Buddhist stuff. ("Hare Krishna, hare Krishna, hare hare, Krishna Krishna," etc., etc.) By then he was a solo act and I started paying close attention to his lyrics. He became a teacher of sorts. Then he died of cancer in 2001 and that was that; suddenly I was on my own.

If only I hadn't wasted so much time on Paul and John in my teens and 20s, I might be farther along. But at least now I am firmly on the path, thanks to my own flexible rubber soul.