327 Market

Having a Handel moment right now. The Messiah is blasting in my room. I hope the neighbors like it. I remember when I first studied George Frederick. Aunt Moujie gave me a the score of the Children's Messiah for christmas when I was eleven and I had just started piano lessons. The opening chords of the Oratoria gave me such a thrill. I played them over and over and over. I decided I was going to learn the whole thing. And I did.

Mmmmm, Aunt Moujie. I miss her. She died years ago. We weren't invited to her funeral, her family didn't like us (not that I particularly blame them). She was huge, like a Samoan queen, but she was from South Africa. And she floated in gigantic mumus with flowers and embroidery. She shared a house with my uncle Palomar way up on Old San Joe Road. She built it from the ground up. It was huge and open and beautiful. She finished it in 88, just in time for it to get destroyed by the Big One. My uncle was one of her clients, she was a psychiatrist. I am not sure entirely what happened, but she left her husband and family and took my uncle to her home in the mountains. Everyone was scandalized, but looking back, I am glad that I had the chance to get to know her. My mother's family has a pretty short supply of kindred spirits.

I am not telling this in any sort of order, am I? I don't remember it in any sort of order. Just a lot of impressions.

She gave the best presents. One year she gave me a copy of Indian tales, Sis and I read it till it was ragged. Rabbit man was my favorite.

I am not sure we even have any pictures of her around. When she died, my uncle was devastated. That isn't saying much, since he has spent most of his life in various states of devastation (you should have seen him after the earthquake).