Thursday 28 January 2010

Sometimes she feels lonely... so she sings

My next door neighbour is a fascinating character, at 82, she's still savvy and switched on, but very frail these days. She was born in Italy and married a Glaswegian (who was stationed in her small town in Bolognia) and so her English is an unusual blended accent of Scottish and Italian. She told me once that she would have liked to have been Opera singer but got married instead! Her kitchen is adjacent to my dining room and often I hear her singing as she makes her meals. I told her the other day how much I enjoyed hearing her tunes, and she replied that 'sometimes living on your own gets you down and lonely- so I sing, I sing so I can hear the sound of a voice out loud'
This morning as I ate my breakfast, she was singing loud and true- it was 'Moon River' and it was one of the saddest and most beautiful renditions of that song that I have ever heard... Later I will tell her again how good it is to hear her singing, but I felt that I didn't want to let that moment pass by with out marking it in some way... I'm always in search of authentic art, art which moves and touches you and leaves you somehow different as a result- and that is exactly what my neighbour has given me this morning...

1 comment:

Moochu said...

This blog post just made me smile.