Earlier this week, our 4 year-old granddaughter told us, in a tone of great earnestness, that there was something she really wanted but she didn’t think her parents would agree to it. We imagined something brightly-coloured and made of plastic, another princess doll perhaps, so we were both surprised to hear that she wanted …. a balcony.
I thought about her request: Polly and Mike are planning to extend and renovate their house (some day), so perhaps they could include a balcony. That way, Thea would be able to ‘stand on it and look out at the view’ which is the vision she has for herself.
Many years ago, when Polly and her sister were small, there was something I really wanted too: a ranch house in Arizona. Rather like Thea’s balcony, I realised that it wasn’t something that could be realised immediately, or even any time soon. I didn’t mind, not really, and in some odd way I quite relished the idea of working slowly towards my dream.
At that time, we lived in Switzerland. I decided to start saving for my house in Arizona and I put aside every two franc coin that came my way. Five years later we moved to England and the two franc coins became fifty pence pieces. Polly and Lucy even bought me a savings tin in the shape of a letter box and, every once in a while, I would deposit the money in my ‘Arizona’ savings account.
It’s thirty five years later and I don’t own a house in Arizona, although I do still collect 50p coins.
As the German composer, Richard Wagner, said Joy is not in things. It is in us. The joy for me was in my imagination. I had no real understanding of landscape or logistics or what it would mean to own a house in a faraway desert. Arizona was a symbol of hope and redemption, something that was uniquely mine and a wild and precious dream that I held lightly, but seriously too.
This afternoon, as we pulled into a multi storey car park, Dan asked Thea where she would like to park. ‘At the very top’, she replied. He circled through the levels until we reached the open air where there were no other cars. We walked over to the concrete wall and, up there on the 5th floor, Thea and her little sister stood looking out over the trees and buildings of their town.
‘It’s lovely’ said Thea.
‘It is’, agreed Dan. ‘It’s a bit like having your own balcony’.
The following morning, Mike was taking the girls to nursery. As they drove past the multi-storey, Thea looked up and said quietly: ‘There’s my balcony.’