Monday, September 12, 2011

Oh Yoko!

So I'm guessing at this point, as I type this in mid-to-late 2011, people aren't still angry at Yoko Ono. At least I hope not. Personally, I think she's great and I love her. Even if she did break up the Beatles, which I don't believe is remotely true, the Rolling Stones plus most of the solo output of the former Beatles themselves are reasons enough to not be all that upset about that, right? After all, eight really solid years from a band is really more than you can reasonably expect, especially in light of what we get these days.
As someone who became a Beatles fan well after they'd broken up and learned their history through books and listening to their music, I never resented Yoko. I always saw Yoko as John Lennon's soulmate, and that the two were perfectly matched and deeply in love. Since I identified heavily with John and he was my favorite, how could I resent her for that?
No, if anything, I came to think of Yoko as kind of an eccentric-but-lovable aunt. Not crazy or otherwise unhinged in any way; she's obviously very intelligent. But she's an artist and clearly she's on her own wavelength, as delightfully evidenced by some of her output on Twitter:
"Listen to your breathing. Listen to your child breathing. Listen to your friend breathing. Keep listening."

"Write all the things you want to do. Ask others to do them and move on. Keep dancing."

"Make a promise to a tree. Ask it to be passed on to other trees."
"Fly in your dream. See how you can fly forever. Try to remember the feeling when you are awake."

"Walk in the footsteps of the person in front of you. on the pavement. in the mud. on ice. in the snow. in fire. on water."

"Each time we don't say what we want to say we're dying. Make a list of how many times you died this week."
If she were my aunt and this was the kind of thing she wrote in birthday cards, I would probably be really confused yet very, very happy for reasons I wouldn't understand.
I wish I was artistic like Yoko and could offer similar insights. I try but they don't come out the same:
"Listen to a cow mooing. Now imagine that it's a cat. Now ask the cat to be quiet. Because that's too much noise for a cat to make."
"Spread your dreams on a piece of toast like jelly. Eat the toast. If it doesn't taste good, you need better dreams."

"Look at clouds. See the one that looks like a rabbit. In 15 minutes it will look different. Because it's very windy today."
"Pretend you're a pie. Ask your friends to eat the pie (you). Try not to laugh."
"Ask a duck to dance with you. When it runs away, don't be sad; that's just how ducks dance."

2 comments:

ChrisRedd said...

Pretend you're a pie...gave me my first LOL of the day. Thank you sir!

Jessie said...

Ahh...my morning coffee just wouldn't be the same if I didn't regularly spit it on myself accidently while reading your blogginess.