Imagine

I am driving home after a long day of guitar shopping. It's a clear night but everything except the lines of the highway in front of me is blotted out so that there are no distractions except the lights on the dash. I am listening to CBC radio.

Everyone else is asleep. We have spent the day looking for a new guitar for my nephew who has been banking the hours he's spent helping us with our cabin. He has accumulated enough now so that he can choose a guitar of his own and give me back my little classical he's had for the past eight months. I don't care that he has it but it's time for him to get his own instrument. At 20, he is a natural player but, incredibly, has never had an instrument to practise on. I wish I had known that sooner but it is what it is.

He played Fenders and Taylors, Gretschs and Larrivees and Martins today. Even a D14 with a tag of 24K US but we agreed that he has not worked that hard!

So today was a good day. Now in the back there is a new guitar case and in it is his new Larrivee that he says feels the best of all of them that he tried.The highway is black and I am lost in thought but half listening to the radio. I like these moments.

Randy Bachman comes on with his show 'Vinyl Tap'. He says tonight's show is a tribute to John Lennon and opens by telling us about an art exhibit he's just visited in Paris. The exhibit is a room with only a white grand piano in the middle of it. It is an interactive exhibit where one person at a time is asked to seat themselves at the piano and play three chords. The three chords are those of 'Imagine'. The idea is to have the visitors to the exhibit re-visit this song and the timelessness of its lyric. Despite its relative simplicity, the depth and impact of the lyrics.So this is what I am listening to while everyone sleeps. Bachman then says he has something special to play. Something we might not have heard before but familiar too.

Then he plays what he says is the demo of John Lennon playing 'Imagine' at home on his piano, with the accompaniment of a simply programmed drum machine. I am lifted. But I am saddened as well, remembering where I was on December 8, 1980.

I know all these lyrics, the pauses, the timing. And this is truly one of my favourite songs. I am with the people that mean the most to me in this world. So I am singing along, softly.

All is well in this moment. For me.I, too, am a dreamer. And I know for sure that I am not the only one.