Hands

I took this picture in the Rodin museum in Paris. It's not exactly one of those stereotypically Parisian images or sites, but some of my favorite parts of my weekend actually included the Rodin museum, the Cluny (or the museum formerly known as the Cluny), and the Musee de l'Orangerie (Impressionist paintings, including Monet's Waterlilies). I really like sculpture, what can I say. About half the pictures I took at the Louvre were of various sculptures.

One of the reasons that this particular piece, Hands, appealed to me as much as it did has to do with my great-grandmother. When I was young, we only lived in the United States until I was five years old, and until our final and permanent return when I was 13, we only visited once when I was about 8. As a result, I didn't actually get to know my great-grandmother very well - I don't remember anything from before I was 5, I met her again when I was 8, and she died when I was in 5th or 6th grade.

Despite that, from the stories my dad tells of her and his childhood, she always sounded like a warm and caring person, a true grandparent. I was the first person in the family to be named after her (my middle name is Pauline), and depending on how one interprets the story of my younger cousin Paul, possibly the only (his mother really wanted a son she could nickname PJ, so whether Paul is due to our great-grandmother or because it was a P-name isn't exactly clear to me). After she died, my grandmother asked if there was anything my parents wanted as a keepsake to remember her by. Of course, at this point we were in Germany and really had no clue what was in my great-grandmother's room at the home, so my dad requested a picture/wall hanging that we had given her for Christmas a few years before. It's hung in my room ever since, and displays two hands linked in prayer. As a result, seeing a sculpture of two hands kind of reminded me of her.

I was actually thinking about getting a picture of this to hang on my bedroom wall, but for some reason, the prices on AllPosters.com are showing up in Euro. It would also be slightly more fitting for me than praying hands given my lack of religious beliefs.

Speaking of grandparents, my grandfather kicked me out of his apartment on Friday. Yeah. I don't know.