Imagine That

"...You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one..."

–John Lennon, Imagine

At first, we couldn't find Strawberry Fields, a five-acre landscape in Central Park dedicated to the legacy of John Lennon. Our maps application guided us near it, but not to it directly. Finally after asking a nice woman walking her dog where it was, we found it. 

This chilly spring walk through Central Park was one of the last things we did in New York during our spring break family vacation. When we found the "Imagine" memorial, there was a group of people taking selfies with it, and many others sitting and milling about the memorial, listening to a man singing Beatles songs and playing a guitar. It was lovely really. Cold, but lovely. 

We were very grateful we could again take our family on a trip like this. Our teens, Beatrice and Bryce, really wanted to come to New York again, picking out our first Broadway show Wicked to see. We again visited the 9/11 Memorial, the American Museum of Natural History, the Met, the Empire State Building, and many other NYC sites. Beatrice also helped to pick out yummy places for us to eat. The weather turned cold, rainy, and windy while we were there, but that didn't slow us down. We took the bus in and out of the city from where we stayed across the Hudson River in New Jersey. We took the subway safely to many places throughout Manhattan, and we walked the streets of New York for over 35 miles over 5 days. All the people and the hustle and bustle of NYC did not disappoint. 

As we sat and listened to the musician play Beatles songs in front of the John Lennon memorial, I reflected on one major difference in this family trip than all the others we'd been on to date: we talked with our children about many adult things. They prompted the conversations, too. Ideological. Political. Spiritual. Current events and more. It wasn't the first time we've had these conversations when they're adulting with us, but it was the first time I truly saw them as the young adults they're becoming, with more clarity than ever. 

Everything that John Lennon represented (and still represents) -- peace, love, empathy, acceptance, and especially social activism -- I see in our children (and us), which was why our adulting conversations this time were so awakening for me. His ideology isn't for everyone, but it is for those of us who want a more loving and empathic world, and we look forward to our children helping to de-polarize the dark conduits of hate today. 

Imagine that. We most certainly can.