i got an email today from wtts saying that they’re having a special john lennon day tomorrow, seeing as it’s the 25th anniversary of his death, and they asked for stories and thoughts from listeners that they may or may not use on the air or in some kind of online kumbaya exhibit. i don’t really care about that one way or another, but i Had been thinking some stuff over the past couple of days as the event made its way around the news, so i used the prompt as an excuse to write a bit. i went ahead and emailed it to them, and now i’m putting what i wrote here.

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i was only 1 year old when john lennon died, but i’ve grown up with the story of my mother’s memory of the moment that she heard the news. she was sitting in the bedroom, feeding me, and my dad came in to tell her. she was stunned, and overwhelmed, and sat crying and holding me tightly for a long time, thinking about the loss for the world and for me, who would now forever think of one of the most pivotal voices of her generation only in the past tense. somewhere along the line i got an image of her tears making their way into her milk, of my small self somehow grasping the sadness that my mother was feeling and drinking it in without really knowing what to make of it. looking back, i wonder how that story has affected my own relationship with john and the beatles as i have grown. i don’t really think that it penetrated my consciousness at the time – the memory is entirely constructed out of hearsay and i’m not even sure when i first began to formulate it. but it’s lodged in my brain now regardless of its authenticity, and the other day in the supermarket when i saw a magazine cover talking about the 25th anniversary of his death, it gave me pause. i think of the john that my mother mourned when i was a baby – a living, breathing, dynamic human being; and i think of the john that i have come to know – a voice and an image, a cultural icon, a continual reminder of a young, hopeful, courageous vision of the future that resonated with a lot of people, people who now continue to live and work to make their own visions as real as they can. i can see how it is sad that we will never get the chance to see who my mother’s john lennon would become, and i honor that memory and that grief, but i also feel grateful for the john lennon that i do know, and even for the ways that the shadow of his death has made meaningful impressions on the backdrop of my own life, only just beginning as his was cut short.
i am now right about the age that my mother was when the sorrow of john’s death moved her to tears.
i think i’ll take some time tomorrow, go sit outside on a bench somewhere, and watch some wheels go round and round.

i ended up going to atlanta and then alabama for thanksgiving break, which was a plan that i only made about a week ago. i had fully expected to spend another year sitting around bloomington, enjoying the break, going to the big church potluck dinner that makes me smile and exposes me to things made of rutabaga and persimmon that are not a part of my traditional holiday fare, and catching up on work. these things have almost become new traditions themselves over the past few years, but this year as i thought about it i had to admit some kind of nostalgic twinge for a lazy afternoon full of leftovers and football, the weight of tradition in the air. i speculated that i might be just as happy spending the day with someone Else’s family, that it might just be people who know each other, lots of food, and the presence of children that i was missing, especially because my own family is scattered about now and so it’s not like there was a dinner that i was missing somewhere. it’s not like my cousin heather was putting olives on her fingers without me and gazing at an empty chair. i thought about talking with friends around town and offering to bring pumpkin pie.

instead, however, my mom and i made this plan to drive south, and i ended up with something that, from the outside, looked very like what i had pictured – food, football, children clamoring underfoot. the weight of tradition was definitely there, but it turned out that i didn’t quite know how to react. i realized that i had two pictures of thanksgiving in my head – a day with family that i had known for years, or a day with friends that i had not. i would either be inside a circle of tradition, or happy for the chance to play the welcome outsider. instead, i spent the day with family that i had rarely or never met, glimpsing circles of traditions that i Could belong to, but don’t, seeing traces of my mother’s childhood, but not of my own.
in the end, i think it was good, but it was a little weird, and i don’t really know what else to say about it.

i got the chance to see my great aunt jean, which was the main reason we drove down, and that was good. i also saw my grandmother, and one of the babies i had never met (my 2nd cousin, once removed, i believe… woohoo! look at me be geneaology guru!) had a grin that could truly break your heart.
the drive only took 8 hours, and i felt bad for not making it before now.

i also acquired something that may or may not be the flu, and so most of today has been spent either grappling with fever or consuming orange juice. i’m hoping it will be considerate and resolve itself by tomorrow, because i have a pervasive computing project that is not as far along as prudence dictates that it should be… but we’ll just have to see.

on the way back from atlanta i had a really great talk with my mom about my capstone and why i love hci, and i should write about it. i feel like i’m getting close to the point where i will really be able to articulate why i’m doing what i’m doing, and that’s simultaneously exciting and scary as fuck. my main mission for the weekend has been to revise my resume and convert it to a CV, and i’m about done, but the fever distracted me more than i had hoped. i hereby pledge to write more about all of this later, but right now i’m going to get more orange juice, and then check back to planet info to see if my head has been jarred.