People have asked me if I was born at the right time. My answer is always, “yes.” Do I wish I possessed the ability to morph myself into a young woman who is falling head over heels in love for the first time? Yes. Does a storm brew up in me when people think I am not up on my Lady Gaga and Black Eyed Peas? Yes. They both go nicely with a full-bodied red wine.
But I was born at the right time in history and that realization came to me when I heard Ed Sullivan say, “Ladies and Gentlemen, The Beatles.”
John Lennon was my first crush. Before I knew what the hell a crush was. He was a married man with a child. I was just a child who loved The Beatles. John Lennon.
John was charming, witty, sexy (maybe I was too young to think of him that way, but he was), brilliant, British and he was John Lennon.
Oh, to be in England when Beatlemania was at its height. If only some of my ancestors had stayed put. We could have gotten used to warm ginger ale and unpalatable food.
It seems that all great artists suffer for their art in different degrees. I feared what drugs would do to this creative genius; I cried when The Beatles broke up; I loved his solo career and the house husband period that helped him find a new voice. His “Double Fantasy” album let a hard and uncaring world know that in the end all you need is love. He was letting us all in on his secret.
I got over him marrying Yoko Ono.
As Charles Dickens (whom I am sure would have loved the Beatles in his own depressing way) had penned, “It was the best of times, it was the worse of times.”
I was living in Manhattan and had started a new job in advertising field. I didn’t really know a soul there, but we became an extended family on December 9, 1980.
My favorite disc jockey woke me up that morning, saying over and over again, “We have to find a way to deal with this.” Being cynical, I thought he must be referring to the football game that played on TV the night before – December 8th. And then those words that have always stayed with me were painfully uttered, “that John Lennon was murdered.” My legs gave out as I was getting out of bed and the cold floor was where I stayed for what seemed like an eternity.
I called my mother because I figured she would tell me that they got it all wrong, but they had not. She was up all night with one of my brothers whose body, mind and soul could not, would not accept the news. Part of me was not buying it either. Who the hell would murder a Beatle?
I remember that I got myself dressed – grey, boat neck dress that I had sewn myself that was accessorized with a wide black leather belt and heels. Stupid shit you remember.
Didn’t bother with make up.
At work I found kindred spirits who were sobbing – men and women. My boss had taken a cab through Central Park the night before and had come out of the park right by the Dakota. Right where that man walked up to John Ono Lennon and killed him. The man who was my very first crush.
I remember reading that the cause of death was lost of blood. Oh, the gun in assassin’s hand had nothing to do with it? Let us painfully remember that seven bullet wounds took the life one of the greatest artists in our lifetime. A man of peace shot down.
Will I find it in me to forgive John Lennon’s murderer? I do consider myself a compassionate person and I don’t believe in an eye for an eye. But I do believe that:
Instant Karma’s gonna get you,
Gonna knock you right on the head,
You better get yourself together,
Pretty soon you’re gonna be dead.
You don’t kill a young girl’s first love and think she will ever find it in her heart to forgive you.
John was only 40 years old.
I have lived more years than Lennon.
Thirty years later, it still makes me cry.
Instant Karma by John Lennon 1970
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name in her friends group that transported me back to when I was in my 20s and living in San Francisco. My boyfriend at the time had a brother who was married to that red-headed woman I will call Ms. X (a fake name to protect me). I looked at her picture and thought about the different journeys we went on after we both broke up with the brothers. We did live a few block from each other in Manhattan. But we rarely saw each other because I thought she was living the more glamorous life. And I was entering my sullen-poetess-and-stand-up-comic phase. And dating guys whose faces I could never pick out of a crowd. I think that had to do with dimly-lit bars and becoming dim-witted after a half dozen Southern Comforts. See, Laurie, I did embrace some southern things.
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