I have always been a music lover. And I have always been an admirer of nice ornaments, symbols and fonts. Yet of all the complicated Celtic ornaments or breathtaking illuminations in medieval books none became as close to my heart and as typical attribute of mine as this simple musical sign – the Treble Clef.
It somehow happened to grow up with me, got attached to me and stayed with me (which is something I once- in my childish naivety- used to expect from my future husband).
Our relationship was complicated - there was a time when I hated Treble Clef and later there was a time I fell in love with it : My only love sprung from my only hate!
When I was nearing five years of age, my parents got obsessed with the thought that they should give me a chance to develop my... er... obvious musical talent at any cost, so they got me a private music teacher (I was too young to be allowed to attend a classical music school).
The teacher was a man in his late thirties, so he seemed a dying man to me then. His idea of teaching me how to play a musical instrument was unfortunately very different from mine.
The only time when he actually impressed me was our first lesson. He pulled out a really big … flute (What did you expect?) and started to play a famous tune known to all children from a TV series of bedtime stories. But then the poor guy made a fatal mistake. Instead of letting me explore his magical flute, or better, his apartment, his TV set and his children’s toys, he gave me a piece of music paper and a pencil and made me draw Treble Clefs for more than half an hour! God, how I hated it. What did he think to be doing, teaching a pre-school child full of energy via repetitive and diligence demanding activity such as writing? I mean, I was actually able to read and even write in capital letters by then, but I had no idea what the word patience might mean.
And yet, some ten or eleven years later, and mainly thanks to my love for music and flutes, I met a group of people, who not only have taught me that all we need is just a little patience, but who also gave me the name of Juliet. Yes. That Juliet. The first Juliet that pops in your mind.
It is not my Christian name and yet it is the only name that 98% of my friends know me under. But it is of no importance right now, what’s in a name, anyway.
The important thing was that due to my new role I had to sign some love letters and would-be-renaissance documents in a more creative way. And in one of my epiphanic moments in one of my beloved places, I wrote down one of such letters and suddenly draw a Treble Clef instead of a signature. And then I turned part of the Treble Clef into the initial J and started adding an occasional heart later.
Juliet beginning with a Treble Clef then became my official signature (well, not on my Visa card, unfortunately) and something that can distinguish me from any other Juliet in the world.
(illustrative pictures to be added)
With the death of my beloved Romeo and my own character in this heartbreaking play and with the death of the importance of ink and paper letters in this heartbreaking world, I transcended to the virtual world, hidden behind the icon you can see on the top of this page.
This became of immense importance especially in those periods of time in my life, when all seemed dark and gloomy and when I needed to reevaluate and revise who I really was and wanted to be. Last time this happened (a few weeks ago, actually) I have chosen faithfulness to playing the flute, additional teaching myself some French and making myself a T-shirt as some of the possible ways to lead me out of misery to the point of Paradise, pardon, sanity regained.
In terms of fulfilling my “old year resolutions” I got myself a set of colours for fabrics for Christmas and a huge flute (yeah, bigger than that loser of a teacher used to have – no, seriously, I just love low tones) for my birthday and started trying to pick up some French using my favourite way of widening the word stock in any language (wish my students would like it, either).
Except for listening to French songs, watching French movies and trying to understand every 30th or so word in
And what could possibly be more important word to me than Treble Clef, the only “certain-certain” part of myself not implanted by anyone else and thus not painful?
Surprisingly, this is not how I found out about Clef de Sol. The trouble with Treble Clef was that it already sounded so French-like that I found it unnecessary to look for further “translations”. But one day later, when I was searching the database of pictures tagged simply as Clef to find myself a suitable stencil for my T-shirt, I found this page by chance.
And I was completely taken aback. Clef the Sol. The first amateurish French-to-French translation that attacked my mind was “clef of the sun; sunny key”. Perhaps it was because the sun, le Soleil in French, Sol in Spanish, was one of the main attributes of the period of life I was actually trying to heal myself from by focusing on Treble Clef.
Suddenly, these symbols of burning pain and healing music faded into one another in a single moment.
Of course, I know. It is no “sunny key”. It is Clef de do-re-mi-fa-SOL-la-si-do. It is called G-clef in my mother tongue, after all. And yet, trapped in the sad darkness once again, I gradually started to enjoy the idea of having the key to the sun, to the heart of light, to the essence of life, and all the other positive connotations that the shiny “grand” sphere of a star can have.
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