Y is for Yes.

I was woken at about three this morning by a dream in which my boy had thrown a stick, very hard, which had hit his grandmother, knocking her backwards over the neighbour's fence, leaving her buried in the earth, dazed and injured.  I made myself wake up before I could dig mum out (in the dream) because the whole thing was upsetting and very, very stressful.  

Before bed I'd been watching a long documentary casting doubt on the official explanation of events surrounding September 11, 2001. Like many others I have also been very concerned about the squillions of people affected by the earthquake in Nepal, not to mention the most unjust execution by firing squad (carried out last night) of two reformed drug smugglers, in Indonesia, as well as the continuing horrors of our own country's needlessly inhuman asylum seeker policy. 

I'd tried to offset the darkness by doing some fun art play, but clearly the balance hadn't been quite right... Clearly.

Anyway.  The point is, there is a lot of darkness.

When John Lennon first encountered Yoko Ono it was at her exhibition of avant-garde works, "Unfinished Paintings" at the Indica Gallery in London in 1966. He was going through a cynical, anti-Beatle phase.  Tired of the constraints of fame and fans, of the war in Vietnam, of the taxation system, of contractual demands...

Yoko, a renowned artist, didn't know who John was when he turned up on the night before the opening, but he knew the gallery owners so she humoured him as he examined her works, and this is what he had to say about it later...

"But there was another piece that really decided me for-or-against the artist: a ladder which led to a painting which was hung on the ceiling. It looked like a black canvas with a chain with a spyglass hanging on the end of it. This was near the door when you went in. I climbed the ladder, you look through the spyglass and in tiny little letters it says 'yes'. So it was positive. I felt relieved. It's a great relief when you get up the ladder and you look through the spyglass and it doesn't say 'no' or 'fuck you' or something, it said 'yes'."

Today, as I look out the window at a bright blue sky, dotted with cotton candy clouds, and my ears are assaulted with the cockatoos screeching mayhem overhead, I realise it's the universe delivering her message: "yes".  And I am relieved.

Yes.

Blackbird by The Beatles
Artwork by soph&son