What gave my cottage on Windsor Road its special character was the large voorkamer<\/em> which stretched across the width of the house and gave straight onto the open stoep on the street.\u00a0 The green door in the centre, flanked by two. large windows with small lead-panes provided the face to No 10.\u00a0 Cheerful and welcoming<\/p>\n My grandmother\u2019s 1901 Bechstein had moved into a prominent place on the dark parquet flooring in the long rectangular, high-ceilinged room.\u00a0 There was a sense of two halves to the space, which had clearly held two separate rooms in earlier times.\u00a0 The remains of the central corridor now led off between two more rooms and twisted past a kitchen and back courtyard room.\u00a0 One end of the voorkamer<\/em> held floor to ceiling bookshelves and low cupboards painted white.\u00a0 My piano presided in this half, which also held the old yellow wood and stinkwood dining table.<\/p>\n The other half of the voorkamer<\/em> contained a closed combustion fire unit with its long metal flue stretching up through the ceiling, which was over three metres.\u00a0 The seating area comprised two reddish rust two-seater couches with the deep red jeweled Turkish carpet holding the space.\u00a0 The other carpet created the piano space.\u00a0 I have described\u00a0 earlier how these two carpets arrived in my life when Ronald helped set up my loft living space eleven years earlier, and here they were setting up my new space.<\/p>\n A lovely resonant volume.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n The idea of the Soir\u00e9e du Coeur<\/em> was a natural progression in the life of my piano, which in the 1940s had been the heart of musical evenings in my grandparents\u2019 home in Port Elizabeth, which was a boarding house with regular and long-term guests.\u00a0 Many were musicians or sang in the city choir.\u00a0 Now it was to be the centre of a series of such events at No 10 over the next three years.<\/p>\n The initial Soir\u00e9e du coeur<\/em> was a co-creation and was presented as \u2018Not the Oscars! but a Soir\u00e9e du coeur\u2019.<\/p>\n Giles Griffin, Dinah Eppel and I had been meeting regularly with Dawn Garisch in follow-up sessions to the memoir writing workshops we had all done with her.\u00a0 There was much fertile material to share.\u00a0 And on the music front, Dawn\u2019s gifted and complex son was producing exquisite songs and extraordinary music on his guitar, which needed to reach a wider public.<\/p>\n No 10 offered a safe space for artists to present their creations and work in progress.\u00a0 Hence the title \u2018Not the Oscars!\u2019\u00a0 Audiences were also performers and responses were generous and encouraging.\u00a0 No postmortems or sharp witty critiques.\u00a0 Permission to play and fun was in the sub-text.\u00a0 But at the same time, deep soul-searching works were in progress\u00a0 and at each soir\u00e9e (almost monthly in the initial phase) these oevres were shared and appreciated.<\/p>\n Many emotional wings took shape and flourished in the space.\u00a0 A first poem offered by a 58 year-old man drew warm responses and he was back with two more creations the next time.<\/p>\n On one early occasion during a fierce Cape winter, when rains were more predictable, the rain pelted down with the fireplace gently glowing and the audience settling into their seats.\u00a0 A bedraggled dripping bearded man entered clutching a very small guitar.\u00a0 It had six strings \u2013 a real guitar, not a ukulele.\u00a0 Roy stepped forward and entranced the gathering; delicate exquisite fingerwork sharply contrasting the large, lumbering gait of his arrival.\u00a0 We were enthralled.\u00a0 Later, when Pete was playing a Chopin piece on the Bechstein, he was suddenly inspired to ask Roy to join him in improvising \u00a0\u2013 Chopin!\u00a0 It worked.\u00a0 An exciting and very creative spontaneous moment.<\/p>\n One of the things appreciated by these early audiences who began to come from beyond Kalk Bay and the Peninsula, as word got out and our email list got longer, was the soup.\u00a0 During a break or at the end we would all traipse down the long twisting corridor to the back courtyard room to find a variety of delicious soups.\u00a0 A choice of at least four with bread from the Olympia bakery down at the bottom of Windsor Road.<\/p>\n We usually had around 25 to 30 people who joined us.\u00a0 The \u2018programme\u2019 was always a surprise; people let me know as they walked through the door if they wanted to share something.\u00a0 And then the soir\u00e9e unfolded, spontaneously and full of creative energy.<\/p>\n I loved these evenings and the familiar faces of the regulars.\u00a0 One beloved regular was Di who at 90 was always first to arrive and had her special seat on the sofa.\u00a0 When she was too ill to make the journey to Kalk Bay, we took a \u2018Soir\u00e9e du coeur\u2019 to her home, where she invited close friends and family.\u00a0 Our core group of Dawn, Dinah, Giles, Luke and I offered our creations.\u00a0 By this time, Luke was working with Dinah and I in a \u2018choir\u2019 composing complex and extraordinary songs for our trio.\u00a0 Quite remarkable and deeply appreciated by Di.<\/p>\n I was very close to Di.\u00a0 She had known me since I was 11 and they had arrived in Port Elizabeth from East London with five daughters, who joined me at St Dominic\u2019s Priory.\u00a0 Di\u2019s stepdaughter, known as \u2018Little Di\u2019 was my best friend, and we all spent many years growing up together.\u00a0 In 1968, when I arrived in Cape Town to start university, I would spend weekends with them \u2013 my home from home. Di had been an active member of the Black Sash and much of my early political awakening to injustice in South Africa had to do with her conversations and committed activism.<\/p>\n She had met Ronald on one of his visits to Cape Town.\u00a0 Then later, when she visited her cousin in France close to Geneva, we made a trip to see her bringing her to our home in Thonon and had a wonderful special supper looking out over the lake.\u00a0\u00a0 Of course, I played my piano for her.<\/p>\n Reflecting on her now, I feel deep gratitude that I was able to share many moments in her gracious presence over her last few years.\u00a0 Her unbelievably blue sparkling eyes, radiance, and gentle understanding and acceptance of all that it is to be human.\u00a0 It was nourishing to spend time with her.\u00a0 In the final stage, she accepted my visits allowing me sit in silence, holding her feet.\u00a0 Much peace in her presence.<\/p>\n And then on 22 August 2016 Di died at home.\u00a0 Soon after, St John\u2019s church in Constantia was filled to overflowing with hundreds of people assembled to remember and honour her life.\u00a0 On my arrival, one of her daughters rushed up and asked if I was ready?\u00a0 Di had wanted me to play.\u00a0 It was printed in the programme.\u00a0 The priest would indicate when I should come in with the music during the procession with her coffin.<\/p>\n My emotions rolled off on a roller-coaster as I sat on the front bench near the piano. There were a number of candles, which I lit while taking this in.\u00a0 There was an organist playing something and then the procession came in and up the aisle with Di\u2019s flower-bedecked coffin.\u00a0 The priest was reciting prayers and there was no pause or indication from him suggesting music.\u00a0 The entourage arrived at the front and he launched straight into the service.<\/p>\n I felt numb.\u00a0 Person after person lined up to have their personal farewells and moment with Di,and I was still sitting at the silent piano.\u00a0 Of course, with hindsight. this was when I could have gone up and said that I would play my farewell, my \u2018Au revoir\u2019 to Di, that the music would express what was in my heart and the hearts of many of those gathered.<\/p>\n But I was frozen.\u00a0 The service continued and concluded with the congregation singing Imagine<\/em> by John Lennon, Di\u2019s specific request.\u00a0 She\u2019d had a specific request for my own music \u2013 and it hadn\u2019t happened.\u00a0 I was fraught with a feeling of having let her down.<\/p>\n I rushed home as quickly as I could, lit candles and sat in silent communication at my piano, offering my music to my beloved friend and mentor, Di.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Creative sharing moments in Windsor Road. 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