my personal saint

This lady might be familiar to some of You, she has been blogged before, both on "Lady of the Lake" (in swedish) and on the blog of a close friend. Now I want to introduce her also to my dear blogvisitors from abroad.

I do not know the actual name of this lady, not even her true origin but at least she is no garden gnome, because if she was I would never allow her to take residence on my working desk as she is doing now. The most likely scenario is biblical, but I somehow get the feeling that the women in the biblical stories just went on carrying their water pitchers day in day out, and that's probably the reason why it can be a little difficult to distinguish one from the other. On the shelf however, it is written "Venezia" and so from now on that's what I will call her.

Venezia once upon a time stood on my grandmother's mirror table approximately one or two meters away from the bed where I was sleeping during "family emergencies" - by that I mean being sick and abscent from the daycare centre or school, or for other reasons that simply required I'd stay at my grandparent's overnight. Then, after some time had passed, she by accident or quite deliberately ended up in my parents storage room. Perhaps it was there where she lost her head, or maybe she had already lost it at an earlier stage. Anyway, until that happened she was always there for me with her comforting presence, like that time when I was struck with the mumps and my own head swelled up into a huge pear-shaped creature. Likewise, she was present to with mild admonition remind me that even a hundred mosquito bites are not worth scraping, that a fever and a sore throat seldome means the arrival of the grim reaper and that chickenpox after all doesn't last forever. Venezia laughed at me only once - yes, I am sure! - and that was when my father came to tell me our family had been blessed with a little brother and I just could not accept the fact that it was true. I mean, from where could he possibly have arrived, all of a sudden?

Venezia is my saint. She stands proud with her head lying at her own feet, with her back straight and persistent in her grace, as a daily reminder that maybe it is not such a bad thing after all to lose your head every once in awhile. And I want her that way! Oh - and if You're wondering - the thing she is holdning in her arms is a dove. La Paloma. Le Pigeon. Eine Taube. It's wings are a little crumpled and it has lost it's face. Of course. But I don't mind. How could it be any other way...?


Here, some music - too beautiful really! - to go with my impious statements. On the other hand, when wondering about the story behind the lyrics of this georgian song, I happened to find following explanation: "Actually, the singer tells us that he was walking down a small river and met a pretty woman holding a pitcher on her shoulder. He said something to her and she got mad and moved aside from him. That's the whole story."

If You recognize the choir it is to be found also in "Hello earth" by Kate Bush!