My Real-Life Imaginary Conversation with John Lennon

They Look at Me Kind of Strange

I was sitting in a coffee shop.

Out the window were beautiful mountains that still had spots of snow on them in late July.

And this song came on over the sound system:



I found myself choking up. Wishing John Lennon were still around. Not that I'd met him. Not that I knew him.

"It's okay," he said in my mind. "Whenever you need it, you've still got the old records."

"That's not enough. I want to know what you'd have to say. I want to hear the music you would have made."

"Sorry," he said. "Can't help you there. But you can say things. You can make music."

"I can't make music," I said. And I sat there for a while listening to him sing and being sad. "Don't you miss it?" I finally asked.

"They say we're all energy. And energy can't be created or destroyed. It just changes form." Then he laughed. "Christ, I sound like George now."

I looked out the window. "The beauty reminds me of what was lost," I say.

"I get that. But it wasn't lost. It's just been transformed. Now you can be angry and feed on the energy of anger for years. God knows I did. Or you can see the beauty and go towards it. I know you gotta make your own decisions, but that's what I'd would do if I were you."

So I close the laptop and leave the coffee shop. Go out towards the mountains.

Imaginary John Lennon is right. Energy can't be created or destroyed.

So we may as well harness it.