Antonia of Venice

I could tell you this about me in this little ditty, and it might suffice: I am a lover of oils and potions,physics and metaphysics.I seek patterns and meaning.I create my own music and magicfrom words and sounds and silence and shapesand look for kindred souls in the ruins of Pompeii. A little interpretation and my bio is done: My original cauldron was Saskatchewan, a harsh province in boundless Canada. Saskatchewan still lives in my soul and my writing. I moved to Ontario, the province of plenty, when I was eighteen. Through the interval since then, my love affairs with literature, physics, music, photography, ancient history, the soul and family life have grown strong roots. I thrive in an environment of music, Venetian glass, gardens and historic stone buildings in Guelph and of nature's cathedrals on the northern shores of Lake Huron. I happen to be Canadian with roots in England, Scotland and Norway. Having been raised by parents who were accomplished musicians, I tend to find myself "un-noteworthy". I'm not, though - I'm note-shy. I never heard my ex-concert-mistress-mother play her violin. I yearned to know her instrument. But she gave it up. Nevertheless, my younger sister and I grew up immersed in music. My mother's prodigious piano skills accompanied my father's beautiful tenor voice. Margaret and I benefited from the musical, intellectual and spiritual environment our parents created. At age four, I fell in love with Venice. My eccentric and multi-talented mother introduced me to the strange city, so physically far from Regina. Somewhere along the line, my mother had learned that Vivaldi, whose music she loved as much as Bach's, had had an orchestra of female musicians. In the 1700's? Impossible! True. It was as though my mother had lived in the city.