My Earliest Memory - WC 11/2

There are red-tinted concrete floors, a stylish black low settee and the cool stone of shaded verandahs while all is humid and languorous outside. My father loved music, had played various instruments when he was a kid - probably with varying levels of ability, but in his family it really didn't matter whether you played well. It was more important that you played at all.

The whole family had grown up making music, singing together, dancing whenever possible.

My father put a record on the turntable and a song came up that was one of his favorites because he started to sing the chorus that he knew well. The rest he hummed and la-la'd. Soon, I was dancing with him, my small feet planted on top of his shoes and our hands linked and arms swaying.

"Take my hand
I'm a stranger in Paradise
All lost in a wonderland
A stranger in Paradise"

Somewhere in space, that memory, like the cobwebbed recollections that remain in us all, still hangs suspended long after he's gone, and I'm growing into an old woman.