I'm not going to say that I really idolize Paul McCartney anymore, but for
                   a certain amount of time, I did. He saved my life.

                   When I was thirteen, my parents became mysteriously ambivelant
                   regarding my exam grades. Then, they seemed eager to ship me off to my
                   great aunt's for two glorious, submerged -in -the -pool weeks. My mother
                   was to pick me up and take me back to the family beach house after
                   that, and she did. She brought along my black miniature poodle (which
                   was odd in itself, for she hated him), and some surprisingly bad news.

                   Vital signs felt dropped. They stopped. She pulled over in a park- the kind
                   of place where innocent children such as myself always played by the
                   riverside. I remember the swings, because the window was rolled down
                   and I could hear their rusty chain scrapings. I think that's what it felt like
                   inside, when she told me. She and my dad were getting divorced. I
                   couldn't handle it; didn't want to hear anymore. But she went on to
                   describe his habit of betrayal- cheating not just on her, but on the whole
                   family he'd created, in the house he'd built with his own two hands. The
                   neighbors that coveted his possessions and family. The dog, even. He
                   betrayed a two year old dog. Then there was me.

                   I cried for an hour and a half. The whole way back to the island, which
                   was usually my sanctuary; my summer paradise. My poodle's overgrown
                   hair was a mat of tears, and I knew then that he was my only best friend,
                   no matter how much he liked to bite people.

                   My grandmother and the rest of my mother's family knew that she was
                   going to tell me. I wanted my aunt to comfort me. She'd just married into
                   my family. My mother pushed her away, explaining to me that she most
                   certainly was not part of the family.

                   My grandmother was always warm, but that day her whole body felt
                   feverish. Of course, my memories of her are now tainted, but she did
                   comfort me, and she was too warm on a warm day. I don't remember if
                   the rain was warm. It was raining, though.

                   I put on my headphones and stopped listening to them. (I needed to wear
                   the headphones, because not wearing them would disturb everybody, and
                   my grandfather couldn't hear a damn thing anyway). It was The Beatles:
                   Anthology 1. Paul's voice meant all that sadness and I would listen and
                   just pray to no one for the music to be conducted to my untrained
                   fingers, posed at my newly cheap acoustic guitar. Paul was so hurt in
                   some of those songs... but then, he seemed so happy again. He'd
                   recovered from all of this sadness. And so I was attracted to him, in a
                   newly paternal way that I had never felt before. He would have been
                   proud; would have understood my music. My two chords that made a
                   thirteen year life full of something.

                   Then I idolized him. Everything was plastered wtih Paul. The walls were
                   Paulpapered. My computer's desktop featured various images of him. I
                   wanted to marry his son. I wanted to be someone else. I wanted to do
                   nothing but sing and write and be left alone, but comforted at the same
                   time. Scrapbooks, solo albums, newspaper clippings, CD's and record
                   shopping... I lived in the record shop.

                   Just as my parents may have been, I just let go of daily stresses with The
                   Beatles. With this music that meant more at any given time that it ever
                   could in the future, because it always meant, always means, something
                   different and new and old and alive and shot like John Lennon.

                   I still love Paul McCartney, these six years later. I think less about what
                   he thinks and how he feels, for now I am wholly consumed by a favorable
                   love of my own- for myself, the person that the music made me, but more
                   importantly, for another wonderful man. He plays piano better than Paul
                   McCartney could imagine doing, and we don't let go of each other.

                   We don't let go.
 

 
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