Nana

I'm listening to thirties music today. I don't know why I love it so much. It reminds me of my Dad and my Nana, and I can picture sitting on the porch in her cottage by the sea whenever I listen. Or sometimes I think about my dad as a kid, huddled in a corner of his cellar on Lafayette Street, listening to his dad's collection of 78s. He said he used to wear gloves and a scarf and sit down there for hours listening to Hoagy Carmichael, Count Basie and Benny Goodman. I don't know why I love those guys so much, but when I hear music from that era it puts me in this really great place: content, buoyant, productive...I get alot of cleaning and laundry done! I can also hear my dad whistling the tunes when he would work in the garden.

I'm heading to a family reunion of sorts in an hour. My Nana's little sister is turning 90. I haven't seen her in twenty years. All these cousins are attending, people I haven't seen in decades as well as people I had only heard my dad talk about over the years: Orlo Ellis, Sister Kathleen, Ruth Hereford.... I'm feeling very pensive about it. It's strange that it's almost a year to the day after my dad died. I wish he were going with me.I'm glad I'll be able to talk with people that loved him. I think my friends and students get tired of hearing me talk about him all the time. Oh, the photo above is of my Nana, Mabel Veronica, taken when she was my age (41). I think she's beautiful.