Today was my Grandfather's birthday. 1898. If he were still around he'd be 104. He's been dead for over 22 years, but last night he appeared vividly in a dream and I tried desparately to speak to him - to ask him about his life, and the events he'd seen, and of all the things I was too young to converse about when he was alive - and upon my queries, his eyebrows lifted and his lips moved, but I could hear no answers as his voice was muted by fog. So this morning, while shaping the overflowing froth of a capuccino into a creamy pompadour, I thought of my Grandfather and tried hard to remember all I could about the man whom the elders in the family claim I resemble most. Tall. How he'd enter the room hobbling on a cane, his presence always prompting my brother and I to freeze with rapt, cautious attention. His white-haired age and apparent grumpy sternness put a scare into us. From across the room we'd watch as he'd sit quietly in the burgundy chair by the window and slowly pack his pipe, not paying us the slightest attention. A match would be lit and the pipe slowly & rhythmically stoked, and the resulting billows of smoke would be our cue - to hurry over and blow out his match, which always made him smile. Star Wars and the Muppet Show. Often present were his 3 elder sisters, and they'd encourage me to play the piano for them. I would compose avant-garde concertos in such a way as only a 6 year old can, and perform to a most delighted 19th century audience all seated upon an antique settee. He'd be there, content in the burgundy chair, tapping his foot along to the beat of my composition. At that time, I didn't know that he had been a painter and had lived as a young American exile in Paris during the 1920s. I knew nothing for he barely spoke at all. My father says he became very stoical and withdrawn in his final years, much like the dying animal which removes itself from the pack to go off and expire alone. Frustratingly, I'm left with only fleeting fragments of distant childhood memories, and the silent fortune of literary magazines which were once his - which sat untouched on his cellar floor for 70 years until I discovered them and put them on my shelf.