abuelita aka the Notorious ABU (she doesn’t like it when I call her that) invited her friend Spiridoula K from Queens (aka tía SK) over for dinner last night. tía SK brought delicious homemade Greek pastries and an album of black and white photographs from when she was a little girl.
I call her tía SK because she is like a great aunt to me. I include the K in my nickname for her because it makes her sound more OG, original gangster, same like ABU. between her first, middle, and last name, every vowel makes an appearance. like, maybe twice. tía SK is the goddess of vowels.
she tells great stories, too.
she told how she went to school in the tiny church of her bleached village high up in the mountains of northern Greece. there she learned to read and write, say her verses, and sing the spirituals.
she always wanted a violin, and that was not allowed by the ruling dictatorship. her schoolteacher helped her cut out a cardboard violin and paint on the strings and fingerboard, the F-holes and the bridge. she brought that cardboard violin home into her bedroom, and would play the music that was only inside of her.
her stories enchanted me. at the same time it made me sad to think of music as something both beautiful and dangerous.
I began to think about how I put things into music to keep myself safe, from a different type of danger. the danger for me is not writing anything, not letting out what’s inside of me. never starting something new never trying and so never failing and so never getting back up again. never healing.
when the last of the kourabiedes (powdered sugar butter cookies) were eaten and we cleared the plates, tía SK asked me to play some new songs for her and abuela and mom, and I did. I know she doesn’t understand a lot of what I sing about, my struggles, what I see on the streets, my joys. but she feels it just the same. she can relate and find the value and meaning in it.
cookie nieves 
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