Reflections on John Lennon’s Birthday

Today is John Lennon’s birthday, and I can’t stop hearing “Give Peace a Chance” looping in my head like a mantra, like a memory I didn’t know I still needed. Every October 9th, I feel the pull, not just of nostalgia, but of meaning.

Years ago, I had the extraordinary privilege of playing Yoko Ono in a musical.
I remember the questions.
“Why you?”
“How could you play her?”
And honestly, at first, I wasn’t sure how I could either.

But once I stepped into her world, into her silence, her avant-garde courage, her love for a man who the world adored and misunderstood, I realized something profound. I didn’t have to “look” like her. I had to feel her. And I did.

Because like Yoko, I loved John Lennon too.
Not in the way she did, but in the way any artist who’s ever tried to make sense of the world through music and truth loves someone who dared to speak it.

John’s purpose wasn’t perfection; it was provocation.
He asked us to dream when the world was falling apart.
He asked us to “Imagine.”

The Gen X Lens

As a Gen X artist, I grew up on his words: peace, love, rebellion, change.
We were raised between analog and digital, between hope and cynicism. We’ve watched the world evolve, spin, and shatter, from cassette tapes to AI, from Cold War fears to the tremors of what some are calling World War III.

And still, today, we’re asking the same question:
How do we find peace… when peace feels impossible?

Maybe peace begins where art begins, in reflection.
Maybe it starts in conversation, not confrontation.
In raising our kids to care, to feel, to question.

I think of my daughters often, my rising superstar, chasing dreams that echo in melody and motion, and my gifted autistic teen, who reminds me daily that peace can exist in stillness, in honesty, in difference.

Peace isn’t passive. It’s an act of will.
It’s saying, even when it feels naive,
“All we are saying is give peace a chance.”

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Imagine Again

Maybe this is the time for Gen X to remember who we were,
the latchkey kids who learned resilience,
the mixtape dreamers who still believe in change,
the bridge generation that can hold both heartbreak and hope.

If John taught us anything, it’s that imagination is rebellion.
And maybe, just maybe, imagining peace, right now, in this world,
is the most rebellious act we can still make.

So today, on John Lennon’s birthday, I’m not just remembering him.
I’m remembering what he asked of us.
And I’m saying it, again and again, like a prayer:

“All we are saying, is give peace a chance.”

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