Substance and style
rarely come in equal measure. My mother's sister is as sophisticated as she is
fun, as genuine as she is refined. Uses adjectives like "fabulous"
and "smashing" without a hint of pretentiousness. There isn't space enough
in her bookshelf-lined home to contain all she's read―and the couple she's
written―but her closet was just as full of dancing shoes back in the day.
She loved to dance.
One of my early memories is being held, bounced, and whirled around by aunt
Joan as The Beatles' "Come Together" turned against the needle, which
would skip when we carried on too forcefully. Riding horses made her happier
still, another sort of dancing.
Naturally, I've always known the
older woman (she was in her thirties by the time I was born), but I also
like to imagine her before that: in the 1960s sipping highballs at a Nina
Simone concert, as the anecdote goes. The gravity of the music, the tricolored
stage lights casting a soulful surreality over the room...
The way her luminous life force and
encouraging love have shined on me.
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