Sunday, December 8, 2019

Warning Or Invitation? Nudity Ahead And Vulnerability Too



December 8th is a tricky day for me. It's a double-anniversary in way.
It's the day that thirty-nine years ago John Lennon was murdered.
It's also the day that forty-four years ago I married my first husband.
Both of these days are deeply embedded in my memory and they are entwined together.

I woke up this morning alone. Mr. Moon had gotten up at five a.m. to start his journey to Tennessee. I felt adrift and weepy. I stayed in bed as long as I could because I just couldn't face the day and it soon came to me that it was December 8th, that deeply emotional day.
I got up and nothing cheered me.
I think that the body does remember anniversaries, both the good and the bad. Maybe especially the bad. The ones I call "death days."
My first wedding anniversary is not a death day, not at all. The man I married that day gave me my first babies. We had some lovely and loving times, some fun times. We tried. And he was never physically abusive or less than loving towards the children. He was, and is, a decent man in many respects and we still love each other in some ways and are amazed at how things have turned out so beautifully. We talked about that, briefly, when I went to hear him play Thanksgiving Eve and he even said a few words to me that I have always hoped to hear but never thought I would.
Words that mean a lot, even after all of these years.
But there is still and always will be sorrow for the breaking up of a family. And the day I truly knew that we would be breaking up was on our fifth anniversary. "Double Fantasy', John and Yoko's last album together was released a few weeks before that day and I had been listening to it obsessively. It was the ultimate love letter from one partner to another in a long-lived marriage that had been through hell and back and there was such brutal honesty in it as well as so much tenderness.
It was the story of a marriage that had been through fire and which had survived and which was being celebrated with all of the genius of two remarkable artists.
And I knew that my marriage was never going to reach that place. It simply wasn't going to happen.
Not only that, we both were hoarding our own piles of resentments and disappointments which were way too sharp and painful to hold. We were so young.
We went out to supper for anniversary and on the way home we argued. I remember that so well.
And when I got up the next morning and went to take my run and then stopped at the newspaper box to get our copy and saw that tiny article bordered in black with the headline, "John Lennon Shot And Killed," something in me just died right along with him.
And not long after that we split apart, my ex and I and I made many huge mistakes and I did a few things right and I mourned for Lennon and I mourned for my family and I mourned and I grieved and I upended everything that I'd known.

I will never, ever recover from John Lennon's death. Those of you who did not grow up in the sixties and seventies can have absolutely no idea how my generation felt about the Beatles. And John was...well, I can't even describe what he was to us. He wasn't a god. But he, along with his band mates, had absolutely, as Yoko said, "changed the world."
Does this sound ridiculous?
Well. It wasn't. It was profound and it was true and I guarantee you that this world is indeed a different place for them having been here and for John and Yoko's passion to work for peace no matter how they were ridiculed or criticized.
And suddenly, John was dead.
Want to hear something funny? (Not funny.) When John was murdered, I had just finished reading some trash biography of Keith Richards which was full of lies and gossip and one of my first thoughts on hearing of John's death was, "Why wasn't it Keith Richards who got shot? He's been trying to kill himself for years!"
Well. There's a bit of irony.

So December 8th is filled with all of these emotions for me. Sadness and grief and yet at the same time, gratefulness that we DID have John Lennon. And that I did marry a man who not only fathered two of my favorite, most beloved people on earth but who has been a loving father to them. Those are two completely different things and I am well aware of that.
And as always, I have to say that Yoko Ono is in my thoughts today and my heart as well. My god, what a woman! What an artist and survivor and a true believer in peace. And in love. A woman whom the world vilified simply because she was not a blond model but a Japanese artist whose voice was as shrill and loud as it needed to be and John fell in love with her and jumped from the safe path of being a Beatle to being brave enough to bare his naked soul as well as his naked body.



And thus, he freed himself from being Beatle John and allowed himself to be exactly who he was.
On the last day of his life, Annie Leibovitz took this picture. 


Still naked. Still in love. And as vulnerable as a man can be. 

Well. Here's a love song. 



At the very beginning of it, and you have to listen closely, he says, "You hold up the other half of the sky."

There was no one like him nor will there ever be.

Love you, John. Love you, Yoko.

Always...Ms. Moon

30 comments:

  1. Thank you. Crying again today has been a sea of salt.
    Love

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  2. Yes. Here too. I know you understand. I know you know.

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  3. I completely echo your feelings for December 8,we lost a special man.You wrote it all so beautifully. Thank you.

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    1. Thank you, Terry. I still feel very deeply emotional about his death.

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  4. You have said it well. Thirty-nine years! He's been gone almost as long as he was alive. John Lennon will hopefully be remembered as a man whose music changed a generation. I know he changed me. I became more aware, more involved, and more empathetic because of him. At the time of John's death and involvement with her, I wasn't too fond of Yoko but I have become more appreciative of her influence over the years. You and me, Mary Moon, are so very, very lucky to have come of age with such beautiful music surrounding us...

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    1. We ARE so very lucky in that regard. I have said that a million times. We were here for something very special that happened during those years. Not just musically but culturally, politically, and with awareness about issues like nutrition and ecology and women's health and women's rights and Civil rights and on and on and on. Did we get everything fixed? Hell no. But we sure as hell tried our hardest and gave it a damn good shot.
      And to myself I will now say, "Okay, Boomer."

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  5. Tears. I don't have nearly the association as you (I was a junior in high school when he was murdered), but I loved him so much. Thank you for this beautiful post.

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    1. I was in Jr. High when MLK and Robert Kennedy were shot. I remember those days distinctly and I remember how absolutely devastated I was and how it seemed as if the world was surely coming to an end.
      And when John was shot, it seemed as if all of the dreams were surely over. I don't think they were, not all of them, but Lord, a lot of them simply disappeared into the ether.

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  6. I remember feeling adrift and wondering why...It seems we have learned nothing in the intervening years as bodies continue to mount and mentally ill people still kill...I remember feeling frustrated that my mother's husband asked why everyone was so upset over a rock star and she who had been an early Beatles fan simply flapped her hands and said nothing. I was beginning to see how limited they were these people and how horrid the world...

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    1. "How horrid the world..."
      Do you remember Howard Cosell and how he announced to the world that John had been shot? He was hardly what anyone would call a hippie and that announcement and the way he made it was so indicative of how famous and influential Lennon had been. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n73GFvAyIjs

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  7. this was the first thing on the evening news i made a connection to. i was just turned 9.

    be gentle with yourself today.

    xxalainaxx

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    1. What a terrible way to make a connection with the news.
      For me, it was watching the Viet Nam war on TV every night. And the protests against it. And the Civil Rights marches.
      We should all be gentle with ourselves every day. This world is hard and often unbearably cruel as you know more than most.
      But there is love. And that was John's message.

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  8. We have lived through too much. But, we have lived, and are honor bound to now live up to several legacies.

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    1. Yes we are. See my reply above. We lived through and saw way too much. But we learned. Or at least some of us did.

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  9. Lovely. I have had that Rolling Stone photo up on my bulletin board all these years. This post reminds me why.

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    1. Yes. I think I still have that copy of the Rolling Stone. It is one of the most tender and poignant images ever made, I think.

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  10. What a terrific meditation on John Lennon and Yoko Ono and this tragic day. I'd forgotten that it was also the anniversary of your first wedding. It's one of those days that all of us who lived through it remember -- where we were, what we were doing when we heard the news. I remember the radio played Beatles songs all day. A very surreal and sad time.

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    1. Surreal is right. My god. I couldn't believe it then and I still don't believe it now. And so, so sad. Yes.

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  11. it was such a shock, that someone would even conceive of trying to become famous by killing John. and now where are we when killing 50 people is almost normal. how fucked up are humans when some of us try to bring light to the world and the others of us try to extinguish it.

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    1. Well, you know John said something about that in an interview before he died about how it seems that those who preach peace are the ones who get killed violently. He was right.
      Although today, it's just anyone that can get randomly murdered. Even babies in their classrooms.

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  12. That's one of those things that I will always remember where I was and what I was doing when I heard about it. I was in shock. I remember taking part in the 10 minutes of silence that Yoko requested for him. I grew up with the Beatles and love each one of them. They became part of who I am today.

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    1. I remember that ten minutes of silence too, Bonnie.
      I think there are many of us who are at least partly who they are now because of those four boys from Liverpool.

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  13. I remember the day that John died. I woke in the morning of December 9th 1980 in my Sheffield bedsit and heard the shocking news on the radio. I scribbled "John Lennon Is Dead" and ran upstairs to push the message under a friend's door before scurrying off to work in the cold winter dawn. A year later I was married to Shirley and we had bought a house together. A lot changed in those twelve months. I listened to "Double Fantasy" over and over and remembered the simple truths that John left behind - "Give Peace A Chance" and "All You Need Is Love" and "Imagine all the people living life in peace..."

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    1. We're the same age, Mr. P., and as such we share a lot. This illustrates that. I never want the world to forget that John also wrote and performed tearing, angry, soul-baring songs. He was no saint but I do believe he was a messenger.

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  14. Oh John-Such a loss. They were living a few bock from us in NYC at the Dakota, where some friends of us lived. How iconic their love story. And the full page ads Yoko would publish in the NYT once a year to summon peace, remember peace...

    Thank you, dear Mary..

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    1. Oh yes, I remember those ads! War Is Over. If You Want It.
      Wow. I had no idea you lived that close to John and Yoko. You were in the center of it all.

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  15. I have a slightly different take on this, as I was born in '73 and had no knowledge of the the Beetles or of John Lennon until well after his death. I see his and Yoko's nudity in that photo and am completely shocked...do you notice how natural their bodies are? They look like real humans!

    I have never in my lifetime seen realistic nudity portrayed before. All I've ever seen are perfect, hairless, plastic women who are perfectly made up, and guys who obviously use steroids and are muscled up to the sky. Of course I know the media doesn't portray realistic bodies, but it's easy to forget the impact of that when you never actually see real bodies displayed. Even the "imperfect" bodies in the the media tries to push are still pretty perfect by human standards.

    I'm glad you had something cultural that held a generation together, even if you suffered when it ended in violence and tragedy. I don't think that kind of thing exists anymore.

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  16. I have a slightly different take on this, as I was born in '73 and had no knowledge of the the Beetles or of John Lennon until well after his death. I see his and Yoko's nudity in that photo and am completely shocked...do you notice how natural their bodies are? They look like real humans!

    I have never in my lifetime seen realistic nudity portrayed before. All I've ever seen are perfect, hairless, plastic women who are perfectly made up, and guys who obviously use steroids and are muscled up to the sky. Of course I know the media doesn't portray realistic bodies, but it's easy to forget the impact of that when you never actually see real bodies displayed. Even the "imperfect" bodies in the the media tries to push are still pretty perfect by human standards.

    I'm glad you had something cultural that held a generation together, even if you suffered when it ended in violence and tragedy. I don't think that kind of thing exists anymore.

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    1. Whoa! I thought you were going to go somewhere else entirely with this comment and then you went where you went and what a profound observation! You know, there was quite a bit of nudity going on during those times. It was part of the whole gestalt of the era. It was No Big Deal. And these were the days when there were no fake breasts, when a gym was somewhere that boxers frequented, when the running craze was in its mewling infancy. Not to mention that the idea of a woman shaving her private parts was not even entertained. Hell! We quit shaving our legs and armpits! I guess I am very lucky to have been around for that. We all got a much more realistic portrait of what the human body looked like in reality. So you're right- things were completely different. Today it's "shocking" when the media posts a picture of a woman without her make-up. A celebrity woman, that is. Standards are impossible and highly unnatural. It's sort of sickening. So thanks for this comment, Violet. It surely did make me think.

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  17. I had no idea that photo by Annie Leibovitz was taken on the very last day of his life. My God, what a coda. This is such a moving post, so many memories it provokes in us all. It's not a cliche to say he defined a generation. I was already in NYC when he was shot. Every time I pass the spot where he died, I think of that day and my heart splinters a little bit more.

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Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.