The Ballad of John and Yoko

Tis the season for bad Christmas music. I'm hearing it everywhere from the grocery stores, to the post office, to the neighbor's at my boyfriend's house. Normally, I join in the revelry, no matter how tasteless the song, but I'm feeling grinchy again this year, and Mariah Carey and Brittney Spears trying to be jolly is just pissing me off.
On the way to work today, however, I did hear one of the "pop"py Christmas songs that I can fairly tolerate. It was John Lennon's song "Happy Christmas (War is Over)". I like it because it has John's voice, and he's lovely. And the children are singing with him, and that's touching. And the song makes me think of the timid hope available at Christmas thirty years ago during the Vietnam War, which in turn makes me think of my students, as many of them watch their parents return to Iraq this month for the third time. What disturbs me about that song, though, is that no matter how much I try to focus on John, or the angelic children's choir behind him, I end up hearing mostly Yoko Ono's voice. And right up there with Mariah and Brittney, it's incredibly irritating.
I owe a lot of who I am culturally-cool-wise to my big sister, who introduced me to The Beatles right after her country music phase and shortly before she went punk. I needed my sister to do this because my parents were Carpenters/Streisand/Manilow people, and sadly, I thought their musical preferences were keen. My older, cooler sister saved me. But along with her preferences, she passed down her biases. When she was fifteen, she managed to score a button that she wore proudly on her torn jean jacket (80's, people) that stated "I still don't understand what he saw in that bitch, Yoko". We watched a Beatles documentary together, and when Yoko entered the scene, and the recording studio, my sister tisk-tisked in a way that let me know that this woman's sins were unforgivable.
And really, her prejudice seemed justified. What did John see in Yoko? He was John Lennon, a Beatle, and she was, well, not at all who you would expect. Out of an entire Western Hemisphere, Yoko? Really? Not only was she not traditionally beautiful, but the blame for the Beatles breakup seemed to lay squarely in her lap. Bitch.
However, I was twelve. And complicated things break down a lot more simply at twelve. There were a lot of relationships back then that I didn't understand.
At 33, I met the 2006 Colorado version of John and Yoko. My boyfriend runs with a very tight crowd, which blows me away since none of my friends seem to even know that I have any friends outside of themselves. Regardless, the John in this relationship is J's friend, a sweet and beguiling man whose boyish features are always enhanced by a smile. He has climbed mountains, explored third world countries, and manages a very successful business that he started all by himself. His Yoko is a bit dumpy, slightly cross-eyed, and personality-wise, either intentionally abrasive, or sadly unself-aware. She has said several things in my presence that have left me wondering, "Did she hear what she just said?" And my opinion does not stand alone. When it became evident to the crowd that Yoko was not going anywhere anytime soon, my boyfriend had the very unpleasant task of conveying to John the universal concern about his choice in women. It's amazing that he was still invited to the wedding three months later.
I run into John and Yoko quite frequently at social gatherings; they've been married now for over two years. The group has resigned itself to Yoko, but she and John still usually end up sitting, I'm guessing by choice, off by themselves in another room, huddled in what looks like very intimate conversation. A part of me thinks that is sad, but as I circle, making small talk and trying hard to say nothing that will allow J's friends to question his taste in women, I find my gaze colored by wonder. How content they seem, how happily isolated in their own built-for-two world.
Regardless of the group opinion of this Yoko, and probably all Yokos, there must be a piece of the picture that's being missed. Because John and Yoko spent a week in bed, eating chocolate cake from a bag, and I'm guessing they never once ran out of things to say. Something in Yoko was perfect for John, and who were The Beatles, or the rest of America, or J's small circle of friends, to question it.
It’d be lovely to think that the reason why we don't always understand relationships is because what makes them work is not often visible on the surface. Below the skin, buried deep within the soul, a jagged piece is smoothed out by a snug fit of its jagged match, and the rest of it, the abrasiveness, the crossed-eyes, and the dumpiness, all falls away.
My Great Aunt May and Uncle Joe were John and Yoko long before John and Yoko hit the public scene. May was cute and feisty. She was wooed by all the town men for her skill on roller skates and the shape of her legs beneath her short roller skating skirts. Everyone whispered and wondered when she chose to marry the man in town who couldn't count change. But my mom told a story to me last week that I had never heard. Joe, a teenager when my mom was a girl, would let my mom come roller skating with him and his girlfriend (the beautiful and much sought after May). Around and around the rink they would skate with my mother's hands clasped tightly into theirs. That Joe is probably part of the jagged piece that snapped tightly into place for my great aunt. Retired now, they sit on their porch together in the summer while Joe smokes his cigars. My grandmother, one of the more vocal neighsayers back then, will still end a conversation about them with, "Lord knows what they've had to talk about all these years." But last year, my Great Aunt May and Uncle Joe celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.
I still don’t know what John saw in Yoko. But then again, I don’t know Yoko. And even if I did, I’ll bet the only conclusion I could successfully draw was that she never should have tried her hand at a singing career. One thing I’ll always admire, though, is her ability to stand in the disapproving face of all who questioned her place in a relationship that seemed to work. John and Yokos happen all the time. They may, in fact, be part of the last bit of magic in this world. And yes, I’m fully prepared to accept that someday this will all come back to haunt me. Someday I will try to understand the love that shines in my daughter’s eyes for a guy who won’t make eye contact with me and mumbles monosyllabic replies to my every question. When I’m bemoaning the fact that he seems more Neolithic than Harvard-bound, I’ll take comfort once again with the idea that there must be something else there. You know…a John and Yoko thing.