The long and winding road not taken

I seemed to spend rather a lot of my last three months in Ottawa gazing down from the top of a double-decker on the long stretch of Bank Street heading south: passing the middle school where elder daughter was shunned for several painful, bewildering months. As a result, I refused to send younger daughter there. I usually averted my eyes.

Beyond is the Land of Might Have Been, which is generally Bank Street below the Queensway. One of the houses we were looking at in the early spring of 2000 was a townhouse not far from where the Lansdowne Complex of rather sterile stores and restaurants has grown and mutated beside the stadium in the intervening years.

Imagine how that would have been.

Our girls would have been Glebe girls attending Mutchmor Public and Glebe Colligiate. Our daily lives would have been shaped by the sluggish bus trips up the clogged artery of Bank Street. We would have crossed the bridge over the Rideau to go to the library, which leads to another Might Have Been in Ottawa South.

We looked at a house here too, but a decade ago, we were also looking at an independent school in the neighbourhood. Younger daughter eventually chose a school in far-flung Nepean, and, sitting high above Bank Street in the bus, I thought wistfully of coffee shops where I could have comfortably waited, along bus routes that would have taken us home without a transfer, along a road not taken.

The road I was taking was often out to the South Keys Cineplex to see a series of four marvelous lectures entitled Deconstructing the Beatles, covering the albums Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sergeant Pepper, and the White Album.

In a time of upheaval, it was some comfort to have a Beatlefest. It engendered a sensation of a cycle being completed.

Or maybe a continual spiral.

Our last concert at Chamberfest, for example, was the same as my first Chamberfest concert: "Sergeant Pepper Reimagined", which we first saw in November 2013 with the Time Out Orchestra (whose director arranged the music). Four years ago, the singers were a kind of Canadian super-group: Steven Page (formerly of the Barenaked Ladies), John Mann (Spirit of the West), Andy Maize (Skydiggers), and Craig Northey (The Odds), who has grown considerably more silver since then.

John Mann is descending into early Altzheimer's, so Wesley Stace, who sometimes performs under the name "John Wesley Harding", was taking over for him, complete with a pink suit and dry British humour. When elder daughter first told me about the approaching concert, she was taken aback at how excited I was. "Hitler's Tears" is a longtime favourite of mine.

The audience was markedly different from the one in 2013, when it had been an eclectic group, ranging from young kids to those in their seventies. This final evening of Chamberfest, the audience was largely composed of over-50s, mostly subscribers and season ticket holders.

In fact I was amused to look on as a longtime subscriber, seated directly ahead of me, started scanning her programme, puzzled by the reprise of "Sgt. Pepper Lonely Hearts Club Band" (We're sorry, but it's time to go.). Clearly, she was wondering why the concert was apparently ending so soon, evidently not aware that the epic "A Day in the Life" was to follow, along with several encores, which included "Oh, Darling" (from the White Album - during which Steven Page turned aside his microphone to demonstrate how he could fill Dominion Chalmers United Church with sheer vocal power), "Here Comes the Sun"(from Abbey Road), "Penny Lane", and of course, "All You Need is Love",the song that was recorded directly after Sgt. Pepper.

Glancing over my shoulder, I saw elder daughter - so relieved that Chamberfest was winding down - standing at the back of the balcony with her co-workers, soulfully waving their lit phones in time to the music.

Oh. And I got the Deconstructing the Beatles series for Christmas. It may not be all I need, but I'll get by.