dual personalities

I recently posted about a necklace that I inherited from my grandmother. Today I’m going to write about another object she left me — a modest wooden trinket box that has always particularly intrigued me.

Until recently all my efforts to determine its origins have failed, but I think I’ve finally figured it out. I believe that it was made by White Russian émigrés to Europe after the Bolshevik Revolution. It certainly compares better to Russian trinket boxes than anything else I’ve seen. Note the overall folk-art style, the simple subject matter,

the snow and incised detail,

and the turned-away figures.

Between time spent in Paris, Italy, and London in the 1920s, our grandmother would have had plenty of opportunity to acquire such a box. The wonder is that she kept it all those years, that my father held on to it, and that it has survived in my boisterous house. Wouldn’t you love to know the story behind it? Was the concierge of their Paris flat a White Russian who made these on the side and gave it to her? Did she just pick it up from a street vendor somewhere? Well, its story may be lost in “the dustbin of history”, but the little object (of negligible monetary value) remains one of my favorite treasures, and I hope that one day I will pass it along to one of my sons.

I think it’s time to re-watch Yul Brynner and Ingrid Bergman in “Anastasia”, don’t you?

*“You are pitiful, isolated individuals! You are bankrupts. Your role is played out. Go where you belong from now on – into the dustbin of history!”  Leon Trotsky (Ha! Little did he know. Leon Trotsky had to flee his own communist regime only to get murdered in Mexico City).

I was thinking about babies and wondering how much I weighed as a newborn, so I found my birth announcement (7 lb. 6 oz.) and found this charming photo of my hatchling self.

This picture  used to embarrass me a lot when I was a child. Not too cute, this little babe. My mother always said, no, you were precious, but I could plainly see that I was not.

When I was growing up, one of my friends used to frequently say to me, “Open your eyes, Katie!” because I had a habit of closing them when I talked to people. (Yelling at me didn’t help.) You can see I was reluctant to open them from the beginning.

However, I can see me in that face, and as I get older, I think I look more like it than ever.

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

–W. Shakespeare, As You Like It

Have a good weekend. It’s supposed to be colder “than normal” and they say we’ll get two inches of snow. Wanna bet?

A week or so ago while my DH and I were taking a brief stroll at our cottage, we heard a lot of unusual bird calls. Much to our surprise and delight, we discovered a group of about five (!) bald eagles soaring above us. When a large flock of crows tried to drive them off, aerial high-jinks ensued, and needless to say the eagles got the better of the engagement. A few days later, I came across my eagles on a local news site:

Photo by Sue Yenoli from NorthCountryNow

Now that’s something you don’t see every day! The whole experience got me thinking about eagles as symbols, which naturally brought to mind Roman legionary standards.

Sometime in the 1st century BC, probably when Marius reshuffled the army, the legions started carrying their famous eagle standards. For Romans, the eagle was the greatest symbols of pride and identity. To lose one to the enemy was worse than death, although it happened on several famous occasions.  The first Roman Emperor, Augustus, won himself massive public approval by negotiating the return of standards taken by the Parthians at the battle of Carrhae in 53 BC. The scene appears front and center on his famous statue from Prima Porta.

The two central figures on the breastplate show the handover clearly.

The Romans went to great lengths to recapture lost standards. They even managed to recover the three taken by the Germans in the Teutoburg forest during the famous massacre in 9 AD. A century later, a panel from Trajan’s Column depicted soldiers carrying the standards (with added battle honors) on campaign against the Dacians in what is now Romania.

And still later, they appear prominently in this scene from the Arch of Constantine,  though that emperor is said to have replaced the eagle with a cross after he converted to Christianity.

Scene of the emperor’s mercy (clementia). Relief on the north side. Marble. A.D. 175—196. Rome, Arch of Constantin.

Certainly, the Roman eagle and all it stood for inspired America’s founding fathers, who (after much debate) chose the eagle to symbolize American freedom and spirit. Everything from the presidential seal to the quarter has the eagle on it.

Benjamin Franklin preferred the turkey (oh, the memes that could have been!), but there was no denying the majesty of the bald eagle. Add to that the Roman connection and you have a mighty cool national symbol.

If you are intrigued by Roman legionary standards, I recommend that you watch “The Eagle”, starring Channing Tatum as the son of a commander who lost both his life and his legion’s eagle in the desolate ‘heart of darkness’ that was Roman Britain.

It’s a good, old-fashioned adventure movie based on the novel by Rosemary Sutcliff.

Have a great weekend!

Incidentally, while it’s tornado season in flyover country, we’re seesawing from spring to winter. This week the temperature dropped 40 degrees in 24 hours (from 63 on Wednesday to 22 on Thursday). Today we have a high of 12 with an overnight low of -3, and by Tuesday it should be in the 50s again. Planning what to wear is a real challenge!

*J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit. Given how often he used them to save the day, Tolkien clearly thought eagles made the perfect deus ex machina.