Penny Lane – Victoria, BC – [05/06/2019]

Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes
There beneath the blue suburban skies

If I am asked what my favourite Beatles song is, my answer is always immediate: Penny Lane. Ever since I was little. And now that I’m not so little even more, I can even tell you why: Penny Lane is pretty much just about normal. That’s it. A normal neighbourhood, with quirky people, going about their normal lives. Captured in those chord changes is something that I have made no secret for the last few years of wanting very very much. And today? Today we started to build it…

Allow me to backtrack a tiny bit…

For months now my family and I have been slowly and carefully putting together the downstairs apartment that will be Amras’ and my home once we’re married. Through a miraculous searching of facebook marketplace, craiglist and everything in between we have managed to put together a space that is adorable, classy and airy all at once. There was, however, just one catch: Amras hadn’t seen it. Any of it. Most especially: what was behind the pantry doors (more on that later).

So this morning I pulled myself out of bed (a little slower than I had hoped I’ll admit, I only touched down last night after all and I’m definitely hitting the ground running) and – at my Mum’s suggestion, set about zooming around the house collecting things: framed photographs & handicrafts for the mantlepiece, a yellow tablecloth for the dining room table, scrapbooks for the coffee tables, and my personal pride and joy: my Broadway window cards, years old, now finally framed as they should have been years ago, and up on the wall looking good as new.

The very first souvenir Amras and I ever bought together (a hand painted ceramic tile, which was created for us in the middle of a sunny street in Spain and which I have been carefully looking after ever since); and the silhouette portrait we had made when we were in Tokyo Disneyland.

And I was just putting the last touches on the bluebells from the front garden when the doorbell rang.

Dammit, out of time!

But it was worth it, it was all worth it, for the look of exquisite joy on his face when he turned the corner and opened his eyes. Moments like that? They photograph in your mind, and you don’t lose them, no matter how old you get, you don’t lose them – joy like that makes an imprint.

The thing is, only slightly known to me, my parents had been up to more than I thought. I knew they were collecting things for us (my father has a gift for finding things that would normally be pricey for remarkably good prices, if for any price at all), but I had no idea how much. When we walked into the kitchen and pulled back the pantry doors all you could see was a wall of boxes wrapped in newspapers.

They outfitted the house for us.

Coffeemaker, dishes, cooking trays, coffee mugs, blenders. All the things that normally people like us would have by now because normally people at our stage in life have been living in our own apartments for years. Amras’ and my personal circumstances haven’t allowed for that, so we literally had nothing, not even so much as a kitchen scale. It is impossible to say how big a deal this is, or how much it means to us. Or how much fun it was to stand there at the dining room table and discover it all piece by piece!

Once everything that had been clad in newspaper was unwrapped there were a handful of boxes in purple paper. These were the parcels that were not specifically ‘needed’ for the house but that were emotionally too cool for my parents to pass up (and they insist on not calling them wedding presents, though I say they are)..

Among them? An amazing black and white collectable Disney throw blanket which is currently residing on one of our easy chairs; and in a tradition that I somehow know I will never be able to explain to anyone – not even Amras – our own Mah-jong set (when my family in England reads that they may be among the only ones who understand the significance).

And the one that made me really tear up: a vintage picnic basket, in perfect condition. The perfect size for two people to pack up and take…anywhere.

For the rest of the afternoon Amras and I opened cupboards and discarded boxes, discussed groceries and debated on which drawer was best to hold the silverware.

And every so often I would stop, and I would look at those two white chesterfield chairs with the two framed posters hanging above them on the mint green walls…

And everything would just stop…as I realized that sometimes, if you actually wish for something long enough. The universe gives it to you.

Penny lane is in my ears and in my eyes
Here beneath the blue suburban skies
I sit and meanwhile back…