Jimmy Buffett died a few weeks ago and left a whole lot of people bereft. I don’t know if he will get it, but here’s my letter to him.

I miss you Jimmy, already, and I had rarely thought of you in recent years. So you couldn’t honestly call me a real fan, I didn’t really follow your career or your music and I have no idea what your second biggest hit was. But I know the first one, and so do millions of others. It was “Margaritaville.,” but it was more than just hit music–because of the sound and the words, and the way they created a reality of their own, it was more than just another hit–it was an anthem, a poem and a statement. It encompassed a time and a place but it did more than that. I don’t know if you intended it to, but it created a feeling for life and its rewards and disappointments, its successes and failures. And it also suggested, at least, a way of dealing with them.

It wasn’t exactly a hymn to respectability or responsibility. Some would say just the opposite. It was not arguing for any one idea or set of ideas,. It just told us about you and your feelings and your ways. And in learning them, we noticed that it was possible to reminisce and learn things from your reminiscense and go on. But we also noticed that maybe they were not all that big(the failures and disappointments)and that if you were casual enough and patient enough and if you accepted easy gifts such as music and open air and beautiful surroundings, (and maybe the occasional margarita or it’s equivalent)then maybe everything would work out. For many years it did for you.

You were a pirate and a lover, an ideal and a brother and a friend. You implanted in many people the idea of what I think might be called “casual heroism,” the ability to take the tough spots, to roll with the punches and not whine but rather celebrate what you have and maybe learn to appreciate it more. And you taught this to others, intentionally or not, and they loved you for it and their lives were better as was yours because of it. “Margaritaville” became an ideal to many, a place where regrets could be acknowledged, serious thoughts considered, and then it was time to enjoy. “Margaritaville” was a special place where life almost always floated on a cloud of effervescence, that combination of joy and mystery, that some people get from love or music or just plain wonder. But for most of us it lasts a short time, and sometimes it’s a long time between treats.

In “Margaritaville,” it stayed. It was always there, somewhere in the back of our minds that there was such a place, maybe in geographical reality(hey, you were there, right?), but certainly in our imagination and it was that kind of imagination that could become real for short times, and make life better. And for a short time everyone could be a pirate, or at least a mate or follower and could partake of the “Margaritaville” universe. Sure there were still bills to pay and dishes to do and all the rest, l but the knowledge of “Margaritaville,” I’ll bet, and the knowledge that you might go back there, pulled a lot of people through. And maybe it still will.

It’ll be harder now. I have the feeling that some of “Margaritaville” went with you, but that maybe some is still here, still available. Or maybe–and this is indeed a flight of fancy-if I may borrow an idea from C S Lewis(a writer whom I imagine is not usually linked to you in many minds)perhaps you are now in the real Margaritaville , and the one we know back here is its mere reflection. Plato. would have liked that idea. Perhaps someday we’ll all understand.