This time I did not bring with me Sally Vicker's Miss Garnet's angel, a book I usually read every time I go to Venice. I didn't need to bring it, I know the book all so well.....
I did not bring the book, but I met Miss Garnet herself.
She was sitting at a small coffee table in one of the many piazzas in Venice, with the shadow of one of Venice's hundreds of churches falling over her. When I spotted her I looked for a free table close to hers and there I sat down with my cappuccino.
Miss Garnet was painting when I first saw her. Something shapeless in bleak colours. A small woman, few colours, moving like a sparrow. Her palette was most of all grey, at first sight. But as I sat there, breathing in a sacred moment, her pelette changes, into something eternal.
After a while she finished her painting, carefully she packed away her paintbox and her brushes, a pen and a bottle of ink. With even more care she used water from her water bottle to remove colours and inkstains from her hands.
Miss Garnet was not alone. Another British nameless miss sat next to her, helping Miss Garnet to pack away her things, giving a helping hand to remove an extra sustainable inkstain.
When her job was done Miss Garnet found her little diary and wrote a couple of pages. Then a few postcards. The nameless one licked the stamps and glued them on the cards.
I sat there, mezmerised, wishing with all my heart that I could be able to read Miss Garnet's words, even wanting a copy of her painting. I would frame it and hang it in my studio to praise the women of this world who walk the paths less travelled.
The women who let their grey hair grow and the women who colours their hair - not because the world tells them to, but because they have made their own desicions. The women who travel the world with an open mind, with their heart into what they do, and what they do is always what their heart tells them to do.......
I had finished my cappuccino now, but I couldn't make myself to leave my table.The two old ladies left theirs eventually. While passing my chair Miss Garnet looked at me, offering a secret smile, and then a blink with her left eye - as she knew my thoughts and wanted to let me know that we are allies along the path.
I kind of collect coffee table stories. Not actually planned, but looking back through my blog I see that I have quite a few of them.
Photos: all photos except the last one are from Italy. The last one is from The Blue Garden.
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Miss Garnet's Angel is a book my Salley Vickers, set in Venice
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