rhodologue Jules graveraux and Lolita

i m deeply touched  by your comments, at my attempt to write again, and as promised I will speak of two of my greatest loves: ,Roses and Nonna Lolita, my paternal grannie.I will honor her with a fantastic old tea rose: Rhodologue Jules Graveraux, for two reasons ( the second reason you will find it at the end of the post)first because Graveraux  was the person who tried to save the collection of  roses of the Malmaison, the enormous collection of Josephine de Beauharnais, the first wife of Napoléon.Firstboth the empress and the empress of my heart, were obsessive gardeners, my grannie made gardens in every country my grandad  worked as a diplomat, and she was the one who distilled me the love of gardening and roses.. Plus both of them had this old Europe allure and elegance but both of them where born in the New Continent. Josephine, née Tascher de La Pagerie was born in Martinique, while Lolita  was born in Rua Voluntarios da patria , Rio de Janeiro from a Piemontese father and an Anglo nicaraguense mother. I will disgress a little and talk about her mother s families, first with  the maternal side: the Furtado de la Cruz, a pure blood Spanish family, who has gold mines in Nicaragua. I imagine that my karma is full of crimes towards my beloved Amerindians. I was always very surprised when Lolita talked about her grandad Chambers, who scolded her daughter because  Lolita had made some imperceptible noise while gulping some water.  the Chambers have been in the navy ( now in the navy song from the village people in ringing in my head, maybe my genes shaped me as a gay man?) for generations and there is even a maritime painter , and his works are in the Greenwich maritime museum,He was very high church,considered his grand daughters as savages, and then I understood why she was so obsessed with manners while eating, and her obsession with drinking tea everyday. on the other hand she was a very free spirited woman, and nobody could stop her in any way, larger than life. I adored her contradictions, her mix of new and old world, she was obsessed with English manners and rituals, but she was highly opinionated and blatantly honest, and sometimes cruel in her dealings with others. She was miles away from being the sweet old grannie , but adored her because she was just allergic to diplomacy and hypocrisy!She constantly threatened Ettore, my grandad, she would be totally pissed the day when we will retire from that job that has hunting  this branch people for 2 generations and a half. the Baistrocchi has
always being in a kind of military career or in the institutions, they have lived in Parma from the year 1000 on their arrival from Poland, as nercenaires.These Baistrovky, with the centuries , will become Baistrocchi, will
become earls, and will be famous in boring yet beautiful Parma for their
dedication to the city and nowadays for a car salon. oh my god how I hate cars, I ve no bloody car licence. Lolita hated this obedience of these Baistrocchi, she was " fogo" she was fire. she hated all these rigidities, but she was very rigid herself, a revolutionary lady who looked like a Hollywood star , and in every embassy she had a big group of admirers, but did not have problems to dig herself in the garden. Dhe had a very masculine attitude, or what it was considered then masculine. She could do heavy work and then dress up like a princess, always elegant even with mud. very energetic she had million of interests, very much of a vulcano, she did everything in good faith, so I was the only one who was not affraid by her eruptions, ( her nicest way of calling me was sem jeito mandou lembranças:clumsy boy said hello , and her naughtiest where : tu est une quantité négligeable:you are négligeable kind of thing, you are nothing) I could see beyond her violence and was not impressed by her" barking" because she was extremely generous.In Italy we say cane Che abbaia non dorme( dog
who barks don t bite).She had no problems in doing what was inappropriate as going to oppium smokeries, on her shopping trips to hong kong while they were in Japan, she had the most extreme curiosity and an unsatiable    hunger for knowledge and novelties. Her will was like iron for  six months
she trained every day relentlessly because she wanted to become a tennis champion , but she had  to

stop  due to a illness.She made me love ballet, tennis, opera, even though my only true love were plants and nature. What I loved more was the fragility hidden behind this mask :I still imagine this naïve, optimistic young Brazilian woman of 24, entering in a concentration camp in japan because my grandad did not want to be in Mussolini s side. My father was 2 years old, my uncle 1 and my auntie 7. my grandad was a bit of a delicate guy, so she had to be the man of the family, with her 3 and a half children. she was the one who had to fight with the Japanese for having the best food as possible. The guards were eating the prisoner s food and giving them rotten food. Dhe played for her kids a kind of la vita é bella, hence the kids loved the camp, they did not have to go to school and they could
play all day long , with Dacia Maraini and other kids.I think utter desperation  forced  her to change for love of their kids in a military lady. she had not time nor the luxury of my grandad to interiorise the feelings of the camp. feelings and emotions  and time,where a luxury she could not have. this Mask which saved her in the camp , became her prison for the rest of her life. And my impression is that none of them, ever left
the camp. I saw this clearly when my father was dying of cancer, when was 18, I saw him clearly as a samourai, and
that his unsolved issues where the main cause of his disease. I loved Lolita because she was the only

one who was honest on the fact of being broken objects , broken souls from the camp. She was allergic to this world of lies, she could not break free, but in the same time as a don quijote, never accepting it , and breaking her face against the wall. I ve been drawn to this emotional concentration camp myself, and she was the only who was honest, and a continual reminder that something was wrong among all these lies. I would have been more of a silent  and reserved type of guy, liking to spend time alone with my plsants, but realised that expression is the only way to live, and lack of communication is the beginning of disease. So in order to comunicate I had to do some violence on myself, I ma bit
clumsy like her,( she had outward violence whereas mine is more inward) and in the same, as a diplomat son I was trained as very young boy, to behave as a diplomat in social events. To be a diplomat s son is a work and I have been working since a child. I m clumsy in many aspects, because I guess I m a bit of a Lolita fighting the diplomats. I  never been allowed to be a child, I m allowing myself to be so after a lot of work on myself, and had to force me myself a lot, because we all love our prisons.
I honor my grannie , with this beauty of a bygone time, the rose rhodologue Jules graveraux has all the charms of a tea rose, a musical changing chromatism,
from the nankin , chaumois( buff) blush  to pink, slightly ruffled petals, in a semi old fashioned manner.The shrub is medium sized, airy like most of the teas, scented, and always in bloom. the canes tends to turn blackish with age. The link is not only due the fact , I learnt English reading her books about plants and rose, and she gave millions of plants, but this rose was bred in Brasil by A
Brasilian Dr Joquim Fontes, an eminent brasilian poet, magistrate, and rose grower, showing that Brasil is not mere samba , but was a very interesting from a cultural point of view