The Queen’s birthday


This week it was the Danish Queen’s birthday and if you don’t know more you might think: well, just another Queen. But she is unique, charming, cultured, intelligent, special, and very deeply loved here.

Crown Princess Margrethe and Henri de Monpezat, 1966. Ph. Allan Moe
Crown Princess Margrethe and Henri de Monpezat, 1966. Ph. Allan Moe

I wasn’t there when she was born: I’m way younger. I wasn’t there when she turned 18, I was already in France, blissfully unaware of my home country. I wasn’t there when the King died and she became Queen. I was in Venice and still didn’t know anything about my country.

Since she never created any scandals, she was not on any radar. We followed Princesse de Monaco and the English royals, my country was a little dot far, far away and unknown.

I was witnessing Italy in the sixties and onward, and it was an entirely different country than it is today. 

I missed, totally missed out, on any Danish anything until sometime in 1973. Les jeux sont faits, she was already Queen, the succession law had been changed to allow that. What else was new, she even already had children, I didn’t care much. I didn’t know her nor anything about this strange country I was now finally living in. A country that was light years more advanced than the one I grew up in. And yet, this was the country I loved above anything else. I so wanted to be Danish! But that was, is, impossible. 

I can only be something in-between, a stateless soul wandering on this Earth, looking for my purpose in life.

However, Denmark was deep in my DNA, even though I didn’t know it. I used to come here once a year to visit my grandparents, and I tasted the good Danish food, life in Copenhagen, the wonderful fresh milk, smelled the coffee in the old shop with the turning wheels grinding it. I have strong memories. I have colors, smells, events deeply ingrained in my memories. When I moved back to Italy and stayed there for another lifetime missing out on what happened back home, that seed had become an integral part of me. 

I would, could, never become Italian. And I would, could, never be just Danish.

But I worked hard at it when I came back in 2016. Lately I’ve given up, it just isn’t possible and I must instead create my own melting pot of backgrounds. And actually that is so fine, it’s really OK. After all, don’t we all have to create who we are?

I may be a late bloomer, it took me many years to wisen up, but here I am, profoundly changed today. And I so love my nice and quiet Danish life in this placid countryside town. I chose it. I’d never been here, but what difference would it make: I’d never lived in Denmark anyway. I plan to live here to the end of my life on Earth, it will be so exciting! 

So today I was seeing a video of the Queen, during all those years I missed, and it is so interesting. Like another life, the one I never lived. But on the other side: I had lots of experiences in several countries, a thing I could not ever have had, had I stayed in Denmark. My life has been such a bounty of ethnics, cultures, backgrounds: I can only be grateful. I am half Italian, having grown up there, and I continue following the news and my friends. I learned so much from them, they are wonderful people. And deep in my heart I am French, Swiss and lots more. I cannot just be one thing.

The Queen gave up on finding her mate in life, so the documentary says, so she says in it. And just after that, she met her husband to be, and an immense love sprang out of that, a love that continued for a lifetime, and she was the cutest, loveliest one could ever imagine. I hope I can marry my new life and become One with all I am, was, will be. Wherever and whatever. 

Life never ends, life just continues and progresses through learning, experiences, love. 

And may you all enjoy such a life, because the future is bright. Even now, in these virus times where we are socially distanced, we must never forget: all is experience and living, and tomorrow is a new sparkling and bright day where we can love life!

I’m not naive, I do know about why’s and how’s, but I choose to focus on what we can do, what the meaning of it all is, and how we can get a positive experience and learn from life.


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