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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