The sky is a brilliant blue and decorated with just the faintest wisps of candy floss cloud. In Dublin's St Stephen's Green it might look peculiar - a slightly dishevelled looking woman sitting cross-legged on a hill, tapping her thoughts into a laptop, writes Róisín Ingle
But this is Central Park and nobody even looks in her direction. A bird lands, looking for crumbs from her cream cheese bagel, and that's about as much attention as she warrants on this sunny Manhattan morning.
She always ends up here on the last day of her visits to the city. She imagines bumping into Yoko, out for a stroll with Sean or returning home to the Dakota building for a nap. She wonders what she would say to her. Or whether she would say anything at all. She leaves the hill to sit on one of the nearby benches - all paid for by people whose names are etched forever on brass plaques. Under the cool shade of trees, she eavesdrops on conversations that replicate themselves over and over until it seems like everyone is reading from the same script.
Such a shame. It's so emotional. Can't believe we are here. And then a man is saying to a woman, "Honey, you know he was young when he was shot." And she is saying back to him, "But how young honey? What age was he when he died?" And he is working it out. He thinks Paul and Ringo must be about 60 now, so if John was shot in 1980, that would have made him, well it would have made him ... but before he can complete the sentence, a hippie rolling a cigarette speaks without looking up and says: "John? He was 40 when he died."
The couple smile shyly at him and this gives the long-haired man all the encouragement he needs. "Funny thing," he says. "At the beginning of that year John always said that life begins at 40." The couple are not sure what to do with this information. So they walk away, and the last we see of them, the man is shaking his head sadly. "All the good ones," he tells the woman. "The ones who made a difference. All shot. Bobby, Jack, Malcolm, John."
We are all here, in this part of the park, for a reason. Some are just resting in between their jogs or their dog walking or their roller blading excursions. The fact that they are sitting beside the black and white Imagine mural honouring Lennon is of little or no consequence. These people could be anywhere. Others are on a daily pilgrimage. They've come here for years, correcting the factual errors made by tourists. Throwing out tantalising morsels of Lennon-related trivia, titbits which suggest that maybe the hippie guy really did hang out with the Beatle guy, but you don't want to ask and he doesn't really want to tell. The rest of this constantly changing crew - excitable Japanese girls, well-spoken Englishmen, people with little Jehovah's Witness name tags - just want a little piece of John to take back with them to wherever they come from in the world.
It's so peaceful here, so quiet. The only sounds are from a jazz trumpet coming somewhere from the east, the wind rustling the trees and the occasional honking horn of a yellow cab. A sign asks politely that visitors don't make too much noise because this is a place for quiet recreation. The request is respected. There is a magical quality to the silence. We sit listening to the same conversations filter through as though hearing them for the first time.
And then Gary and Lisa arrive with their dog Mary Jane. They have a bin full of fresh rose petals of every colour which they dump onto the ground. Lisa throws the dog a bone and then starts sorting through the petals they have collected from florists in the neighbourhood. Gary wants mostly yellow ones today, so that's what Lisa picks out from the multicoloured debris. Gary has been creating petal peace signs on the mural on and off for around 10 years. It has been a daily event for the past 12 months. Not because of the war, necessarily, but then that sort of became the reason.
A crowd gathers to watch him work. "Welcome to New York," he tells them as he lays out petals on the ground and sprinkles them with water. "Welcome to the jungle." One woman wants to know why he does it. It's simple. John was about peace, he tells her and all he is trying to do is finish what John started. "I need more yellow, Lisa," he says as the sign begins to take shape.
Lisa can't stay long today. When she is finished sorting the petals she has to go and sell the empty bottles she collects to make money. The couple have been living on the streets, beside the river mostly, for a few years. It's not so bad, she says. People are kind and when the really cold weather comes they go to Florida. Last night they were sitting on these very benches and someone came around with sacks of food for them and Mary Jane. It's not so bad. Not on a day like this. Strawberry Fields Forever.