The music in my grandmother’s home is all classical.  I don’t even know where it originates.  I think it’s piped into our house by something called Redifusion.  Titi or someone turns it on, somewhere, and it fills the air, softly, in the background.  Usually the music plays at tiffin (what we call lunch), or on Sundays, when it sometimes dominates the living areas.  Or maybe I think that because those are the times when I am at home.

I don’t know the names or titles of what I hear, but the music accretes somewhere in me, forming archeological layers through the years.

There is a program on the radio where you can request popular songs.  On the nights when it’s on, our cousins next door (on the other side, not the empty, decaying house where Tio Jose used to live) turn up the volume on their radio in their upstairs sitting room.

Because our properties are built on slopes, their upstairs rooms are level with the walkway outside our dining room.   My cousins and some of the amahs gather to listen.  I sit on the front steps.

Dinah Shore fills the night air.

I walk alone

Because to tell you the truth I’ll be lonely

I don’t mind being lonely ‘cause my heart tells me you are lonely too

Please walk alone

Send me your love and your kisses to guide me

Till you’re walking beside me, I walk alone

It becomes my favorite song, but they play it only once in a blue moon.