She sits alone.
”The widows of the world,” she whispers, ”they understand this”-
understand the mournful lament of ”Ocean Child,” Yoko, a spirit filled with poetry.
”Sleepless night/ the moon is bright,” she pens into her writing book.
”Woke up this morning/ Blues around my head/ No need to ask the reason why. . .”
No need.
Perched at the window of her fortress, the venerable Dakota, Manhattan`s oldest apartment building, scene of the horrible ”thing” nearly 10 years ago, Yoko Ono stares below at Strawberry Fields.
The teardrop-shaped garden, an echo of John Lennon`s childhood days in Liverpool, nestles inside Central Park, winding paths and wildflowers maintained in perpetuity by the widow. ”After John died,” she says, ”some days, it just wasn`t that important for me to go on.” But there still was Sean, the son she bore at 42, just 5 years old when John Lennon died on Dec. 8, 1980. ”As a mother I told myself, `I gotta survive.` ”
And so she has, overseeing retrospectives of 150 major artworks created in her avant-garde heyday and supervising the elaborate celebration of John Lennon`s 50th birthday year, a celebration that kicked off Saturday in Liverpool, to be followed by events in Toyko, Moscow and the United States.
(Lennon was born on Oct. 9, 1940.) She is supported in all of her endeavors by Sam Havadtoy, a 38-year-old interior designer, her constant companion since 1981.
You would have been married 21 years; you`re consumed with John Lennon`s 50th birthday year; and he`s been gone 10 years. A bittersweet time.
”A landmark time-a strange time for me. My gallery show in London last year fell on Earth Day-and I felt so moved because it was also our wedding anniversary.”
Proceeds from the Liverpool concert and upcoming albums go to the Greening of the World Lennon Scholarship Fund.
”Yes. The concert is not a widow`s vanity trip. John cared about the environment.”
More personally, what did you love most about him?
”His tenderness, his affectionate nature. He was also a person who tried to be honest with himself, and he really worked on it. When fans see his life, maybe they see that anything`s possible.”
Even a poor, talented Liverpool boy becoming a hero worshipped around the world and paying an awful price for his success.
”How could it have been worth it? I mean, he died. He was killed. If he wasn`t John Lennon, he wouldn`t have been killed. It was a fan who killed him.”
Has that fan ever been an object of your hatred?
”I don`t think about him. I just don`t.”
You`re usually seen around town in your dark glasses . . . one begins to wonder if you`re an eternally somber woman.
(Laughter) ”Well, I have that side. I started putting on the Porsche glasses after John`s death and they made me feel very safe. But I`m not hiding anything.”
How do you respond to recent gossip that you`ve refused to work with John Lennon`s first wife, Cynthia, on her proposed memorial concerts at the Berlin Wall and at the White House?
(More laughter) ”Cynthia Lennon is an innocent party. There`s a Milwaukee promoter, a former waiter, named Perry Muckerheide, working with Sid Bernstein (who brought the Beatles to Carnegie Hall in 1964), and his mission in life is to reunite the Beatles. But the Beatles aren`t interested. George has always said, as long as John is not alive, the Beatles cannot reunite.”
But what of Cynthia Lennon?
”I object to two men wanting to stage a show for commercial benefit and bringing another woman into the picture as a smoke screen-unsuspecting Cynthia Lennon-and saying: `Let`s see the two women fight.` Whatever the smoke screen, they`re not going to get my permission. The whole thing is a hoax.”
(Sam Havadtoy enters the room.)
Then why is Cynthia involved at all?
Havadtoy: ”Because she was offered a million dollars to approach the Beatles, and she told us she needs the money. As for memorializing John, she wrote a book about him after he divorced her, he sued her when it was published, and they weren`t on speaking terms for 22 years.”
Better that Yoko Ono stage the celebration.
Yoko: ”Each of John`s old friends will sing one of his songs, film it, and we`ll have a big video special on U.S. television in the fall. Paul already said yes, Ringo already sent a video, and George-I don`t know. Sean is also preparing a filmed tribute.”
After your husband died, was it your son Sean who gave you the most comfort?
”Yes, I think so. Work is consoling and gives you strength, but without your family, who needs you? Sean gave me the drive to survive.
Did John believe he would lead a long life?
”Perhaps he had some sense that he might not. But we always said that when we were 80, we`d be sitting together on rocking chairs sending out postcards. John always used to talk like that.”
Do you believe in reincarnation?
”I`m of two minds about that. I think that if somebody told me I was a cat or a king in a previous life, what difference does it make to me? I still have to start from zero in this life.”
But when John died, did you believe he was just gone?
”Until John died, I was a very pragmatic person. Afterward, I did notice a certain closeness with him-when John was telling me things in my thoughts. There was even an instance when he saved our lives.”
How so?
”Sean and I visited one city-I won`t say where-thinking it might be a safer place for us. John sent me a message that it was not safe; sure enough, one week later, the police came to me and said they had discovered a sniper intending to kill us.”
In ”Season of Glass,” you wrote, ”Goodbye, sadness . . . I don`t need you anymore/ I wet my pillow every night/ But now I saw the light.
. . .” What was the light of your healing?
”What healing? That`s another thing most people don`t know, but the widows of the world will know. Losing a husband is something you can`t shake. It`s not just a feeling of missing him. It`s something more that could never heal. His loss will always stay.”
Since 1981, Sam Havadtoy has been your companion; has he also been a father figure to Sean?
”Sam carries a lot of it. Sean is not a person who openly shares his feelings. We`re talking about a child who has survived incredible loss and the threat of another loss, and betrayals as well. So he`s very self-protective.” There are reports you and Sam are secretly married.
Yoko: ”I am not married.”
Does the 19-year age difference make any difference?
Havadtoy: ”Not to me. But every time a woman has a man who`s younger, the whispers start.
In a recent article, you were both painted as crass opportunists, stamping out John Lennonabilia. What of this?
Havadtoy: ”Nobody is asking that question about Marilyn Monroe`s estate or about the Graceland tours and the 1,500 licenses out on Elvis Presley. We have four licenses: T-shirts, posters, calendars, greeting cards. There are no rules for dealing with the memory of a rock `n` roll hero who was murdered.” By the way, with an estate valued at $500 million to $1 billion, what does the money mean?
Yoko: ”I don`t think I have a billion dollars. (Laughter) But why is the press always talking about Yoko as a rich widow? Why the label? Rich widow. It`s an insult.”
Agreed: No matter what Yoko does, she`s frequently the victim of a bad press. Any idea why?
Havadtoy: ”Racism. If she were blond-haired and blue-eyed, nobody would have blamed her for breaking up the Beatles.”
Yoko: ”I was a scapegoat. Bad stories are written about me because the press knows they can make me into a weeping dog and few people will object. If they attacked Mrs. King, black people would stand up; if they attacked Mrs. Onassis, the whole nation would stand up. When Orientals are attacked, they don`t hit back.”
Still and all, you can`t seem to shake your reputation as the woman who broke up the Beatles. So: true or false?
”False. I wasn`t powerful enough to break up anything. John was rich, famous, a very macho man, and it`s interesting that this society can never think that John made the move toward me. That`s too painful for them. Too painful to think that their lovely John Lennon made an overture to Yoko Ono. Just think about that.”
So you got the man coveted by millions of screaming girls.
”He got me, too.”
According to the author of ”The Lives of John Lennon,” Albert Goldman, you threw yourself at the married pop singer like a Mack truck. Have you read the book?
”It`s so heartbreaking-very difficult to read. A friend read some of it to me and there were 20 lies on just one page.”
So when you first met him. . . .
”What I saw was a very sweet person, extremely handsome, and I thought to myself it would be nice if I could have an affair with someone like that.” It`s been reported that you had a series of affairs during, between and after your marriages to both musician Toshi Ichiyanagi and filmmaker Anthony Cox.
”I was pretty monogamous, considering. Reports about me are exaggerated.”
You once said: ”I was always having abortions because I was too neurotic to take precautions.” True?
”Yes, that`s true. I had abortions, but who didn`t? Look, I was certainly no match for John, in that sense. (Laughter) If a woman has more than one man, she`s considered a whore; if a man has more than one woman, he`s a lady`s man. I was no match for John.”
Didn`t you feel jealous over his adventures with other women?
”Well, I thought it was crazy. The world was calling me a very possessive woman, having a hold on him, never letting him go. I asked myself: Are we together because we really want to be, or because of some insecurity?
John was experimenting in many ways.”
Including with a variety of drugs.
”The Beatles were joiners, not starters, and in the `60s drugs were looked upon differently-as important experiments, so people could free their minds. You didn`t have to be extremely sad or unhappy to take drugs. John felt it was to celebrate life, like Woodstock-and it was recreational. But the recreation became an addiction.”
Were you addicted to heroin?
”Yes. After the lost weekend, we both went on a juice fast for 40 days in 1975, just drinking fruit juice, and we cleaned ourselves.
You rarely discuss your daughter, Kyoko, who was literally kidnapped by your second husband after you divorced him. Over the years you tried very hard to find her. What happened?
(Sadly) ”She`s 26 now, going on 27. I haven`t seen her for about 20 years. It`s a typical case of a man who`s in love with a child, who doesn`t want to share her with a new man. But from what I know, he did a very good job raising her. I spoke with her in 1979 on the phone, and she sounded very sweet and intelligent.”
Did she want to meet you?
”My ex-husband and she were planning to come see us and spend Christmas in 1979, but they didn`t show.”
Perhaps fear.
”She, of course, must be very grateful to him, and she might feel guilty about getting in touch with me. A lot of children have that same problem. It`s a guilt trip.”
But she`s an adult now. She could see you anytime she wants.
”Well, it`s not enough to blame the mother, now you`re blaming her?”
Where is she now?
(Wearily) ”I don`t know. I can`t keep in touch with her. I looked for her and I don`t know where she is.”
A tragedy.
”Well, what do you think? I tried to find her. What do you think I am?
It`s not something to ask a mother. Of course it`s sad.”
With so many sadnesses in your life, how have you survived?
”Nobody`s life is a bed of roses. We all have crosses to bear and we all just do our best. I would never claim to have the worst situation. There are many widows, and many people dying of AIDS, many people killed in Lebanon, people starving all over the planet. So we have to count our lucky stars.”
And your stars. . .
”I have my health and a very wonderful son, and Sam.”
And you teach your son. . .
”I tell him there are some nice things about life, but never that it`s roses, because after what he`s been through, I can`t sell him that. But nice things, yes.”
And the nicest thing about life for you?
”Watching Sean grow. I love him very much, wish John was here to see him grow. Maybe he`s watching.”
