The Fall of 2005. New York City.

Across from the Dakota in Central Park, there lies a path leading into Strawberry Fields where rests the Imagine circle. 

It is a perfect autumn Saturday. A man on a bench with an acoustic guitar is playing Beatles tunes. Ironically, he plays mostly McCartney tunes.  And well enough for the surroundings. There is a sincerity and tenderness in his unremarkable voice. The crowd is thin, milling about, scattered and appropriate. Some are quiet, walking around the circle cautiously with reverence. It is hallowed ground after all. It is not often one comes this close to another who has changed the world.

Walking north from midtown, I experienced such anticipation of how it would feel to actually see it. To be this close to someone who has affected my life and millions of others. To connect with something mythic yet painfully real.

I peer into the center of the circle. For a moment, I feel as if I am watching myself and the others from above. The circle seems so plain, so humble.

That’s when I lose it. At that moment I am overwhelmed by beauty, pain, humor, loss, joy. All at once the genius of everything that Lennon and the Beatles created swallows me whole. The significance of their art and the lives that they touched hits me then and there. And the tragedy of a light extinguished so many years ago.

I sit down on the green wooden bench beneath naked branches. I gather myself as my friend nervously pats me on the back. She is quiet, unsure how to attend to me. The music man begins Lennon’s “Love.” I liquify all over again. 

No one else that I could see through my fingers is in a similar state. I thought maybe there would be at least one person but none share my mania. No one is watching me. I am embarrassed and comforted at the same time.

I wonder if they have already cried over this concrete, if they have already experienced this connection. I savor this feeling of helplessness.

The times in this life when you truly feel attached to something larger than yourself are rare and sublime. And it’s a special thing to completely let go of yourself and give in to your memories and lose your mind in the greatest sense. And the joy given by harmony and melody, oil on canvas, words on a page, or grace on a stage may not be understood until you find yourself one sunny Saturday in Central Park, hovering over a magnificently sad stone mosaic that reads IMAGINE.