God Only Knows
How do you talk about maybe the greatest love song of all time.
I don’t know.
I can’t believe Brian Wilson began it “I may not always love you”. Who starts a love song like that? I may not always love you? What kind of a love is that if it’s not forever?
Maybe he meant that there was a time in life when you don’t know the person you’re going to love because you haven’t met them yet. Maybe he was trying to say that always isn’t forever anyway because we die. Perhaps he was just high.
I listened to the Beach Boys all summer long last year. If your heart is smashed, especially if you live in California, why the Beach Boys manage to make happiness sad and sadness happy.
“If you should ever leave me. Well, life would still go on, believe me. The world could show nothing to me. So what good would living do me?”
God only knows.
I spent my day yesterday with a friend who survived the Nova massacre. We were talking about how hard it is to have bad days; the kind of days upon which I have to turn to The Beach Boys to force a smile. As I explained how I see healing, I drew a circle with my finger in the air. And I told her that people will often repeat the sentence that healing isn’t linear – or healing isn’t a straight line.
No, it’s a circle. Life moves in cycles. Sometimes the cycles are long, and sometimes they are short. When you travel through the circle with your finger and you hit the same point in the circle where you fall down, you won’t fall as hard as you did the time before. You will recover faster to run the course of another circle. Completing a circle may take 48 hours sometimes; other times it may take a few years. Every time you hit your crash point, you are stronger for all the previous times you were there. What keeps you going through the cycles? God only knows.
I believe that good will always triumph over evil. That if you fill up a room with enough light, no matter how much darkness, then you can make your strength the courage of others. I believe that those who push to keep us out of the places we belong will find a hell of their own making. I believe that all masks eventually fall when they’re supposed to. I believe the truth rises like heat from the core of the earth itself. Keep your eyes open and focus on your power. It’s there.
Rest In Peace, Brian Wilson. Thank you for the music and for being the star above us.
Oh gosh, The Beach Boys were popular about 60 years ago, and I remember listening to them, but not really paying attention to the words, just the sound that they produced. Thank you for providing the link to the song. This time I listened to the words. Then I went in to give my husband a kiss, and sang, “God only knows….” he is 89 and I am 86. You brought some loving joy into our lives today. Thank you. You are quite right about the cycles. As it’s clear from our age, our cycles are closer to finishing than they are to starting. A lot closer. But we still can enjoy Loving. Thank you. This was a lovely article.
A national treasure. I was fortunate to have seen them live. May his memory forever be a blessing 🙏