On December 2, Brian Wilson received one of five Kennedy Center Honors Awards for 2007. The ceremony will be broadcast by CBS on December 26, 2007 at 9 p.m. EST.

It’s impossible to know what Brian is thinking in this photograph, and impossible not to wonder. We know he struggles daily with what they’re now calling a schizoaffective disorder. We know that despite these struggles, he’s managed to initiate and complete some astonishing work over the last decade, including 2004’s release of the completed SMiLE. Over the years it’s become increasingly apparent that even after his 1967 meltdown over this project, Brian continued to be productive. There’s great Beach Boys stuff coming from him, even with diminishing returns and increasing disability, right up through the Holland album and even up to the strangely compelling The Beach Boys Love You, as close to a punk album as Brian ever made, and in its way every bit as psychedelic as “Good Vibrations.” Yes, Brian Wilson was an acid casualty, with collateral damage all over the place, but even that story is not simple or straightforward.

More to the point, the story of Brian Wilson is far from over. Look at Brian’s website and you’ll see an artist still at work–vigorously. In fact, just a couple of days ago he went into the studio to craft a birthday card for his late brother Carl, who would have been 61 this year. The song, and a slideshow honoring both Carl and the bond between the two brothers, are both on the website. The tribute has a special poignance for those of us well-steeped in the Beach Boys’ music and history, for we know that Carl stepped in and took over the group’s musical direction when Brian could no longer carry that weight. We also know that Brian thought Carl the best singer in the group, and asked him to sing lead on both “God Only Knows” and “Good Vibrations.” Carl was the one who did much of the arranging and mixdown production for the Beach Boys after 1967. And Carl was the peacemaker in a group that badly needed one. So Brian’s tribute to Carl resonates on multiple levels, and the fact that it’s also a performance by Brian makes it all the more affecting.

The work continues. Brian’s recently completed and performed his second song cycle, and SMiLE collaborator Van Dyke Parks contributes at least some of the lyrics: “That Lucky Old Sun (A Narrative).” Here’s a review from a listener in the audience at the UK premiere. Obviously Brian has found the group of sympathetic, sophisticated collaborators he lost when his first band couldn’t or wouldn’t follow him any more. Not that they were averse to raiding what they thought was his tomb time and again, notoriously in the “Brian’s Back” debacle of the mid-70’s but periodically since then, most recently in Mike Love’s nuisance suit claiming that Brian was “shamelessly misappropriating… Love’s songs, likeness, and the Beach Boys trademark, as well as the ‘Smile’ album itself.” This from the man who more than anyone rejected and reviled Brian’s most ambitious work.

What is Brian thinking in that photograph from the Kennedy Center? What is he feeling? His survival and continued creativity are a triumph for all of us. Can he share that feeling of triumph? That this genius regularly hears not only beautiful music in his head, but also voices that tell him he’s terrible, is cruelly faith-shaking. It’s beyond unfair, whatever that means.

Maybe in another universe, along another timeline, rock-and-roll was never invented, and the Beach Boys never formed. Those boys in Hawthorne never pooled the money their mom and dad left them when they went on vacation, never bought those instruments, never recorded a local hit that led to almost half a century of extraordinary music.

But maybe there’s yet another timeline, another universe, in which Carl, Dennis, and Al (or maybe a time-traveller from the 90’s?) rally to Brian’s side and help him finish SMiLE, in which the acid, cocaine, and other drugs (like money, say, or familial approval) don’t cripple Brian. A universe in which Brian hits a rough patch but grows strong because of it.

Maybe. Back in the universe we live in, and the timeline we live on, there’s not nothing, and there’s not everything, but maybe there’s something in Brian’s survival to age 65, continuing to make music and perform it, and living long enough to understand, at least a little, what he’s done to make us fall in love with him. J. Freedom du Lac’s sensitive piece for the Washington Post a couple of weeks ago outlines all the troubles Brian’s seen, but closes on a note that brings deep gladness and hope to me. Perhaps to you too.

He’s willing to agree that he is “in some ways” a musical genius — but, he adds quickly: “In other ways, no. I sometimes don’t come up with music when I should. I’ve been called a genius, but I don’t know. People admire me, and that makes me feel good. It makes me feel like I have a purpose. I could not express how thankful I am to have that kind of thing in my life.”

This is all something of a revelation, apparently.

“Brian didn’t really have an understanding of what his music means to the world,” Melinda [Wilson, his wife] says. “He’s finally understanding that. He totally gets that now, and he’s accepting who he is. It’s getting a little bit easier. From time to time now, he’ll even accept a compliment.”

Merry Christmas, Brian, to you and yours. Thank you. And Melinda, special thanks to you for saving his life.