Back from NYC

Well , I'm back from a fabulous trip to New York City. It was a great mix of business and pleasure. I love that city.

I went to see Groud Zero again -- nothing has really changed. It's as if our progress at the footprints of the twin towers is existing in a parallel universe with efforts to seek justice against those who committed the act of war that brought them down. It makes one wonder if we will have to wait until our nation's leaders truly seek that justice (which is not in Iraq, btw) for those open wounds in NYC to be closed up. It's hard for a Midwestern to feel the closure necessary to move on when when you see the site. I can't imagine what it must be like for a New Yorker.

Probably the coolest thing that happened was when we went over to visit the John Lennon Imagine Memorial in Strawberry Fields at Central Park. I had been there before when I visited New York on a family girl's trip, but it was dark by the time we got there. The memorial is just across the street from the Dakota where John Lennon was gunned down. So on Friday after training, Kristin and I met up with Kimberly on the other side of Central Park at 5th Ave and 60th St. It was bitter cold that day and we were all hungry too. I said it was OK if we skipped the visit to the Memorial, but Kristin insisted we go right then -- which was the only time we would have been able to do it in the daylight. So we headed out across Central Park. As we got closer to Strawberry Fields, we saw a big group of people. And then we started hearing singing. I looked at Kim and said "What the freakin' date?" It was Dec. 8! The 26th anniversary of John Lennon's murder. I was blown away. We stood around with the other Lennon fans and sang Give Peace of Chance, Jealous Guy and some other songs. It was very moving and built on my NYC/Lennon experience. The last time I was there, it was John Lennon's 64th birthday. So Yoko had an art exhibit going with his art work at a gallery in SoHo. It was called When I'm 64.

For those of you who don't know, I've been a hard core Beatles fan since I was 10 and heard the Abby Road album. In 1980, when I was 15, John Lennon was killed. I'll never forget waking up in the morning after it had happened and watching the news. The world came to a standstill for me. I cried all day long. That spring at my HS choir concert, I did a solo in honor of Lennon and sang Imagine.

I can't wait to visit New York again and see what my next Lennon experience is!