El que espera desespera.
He who waits despairs.
My grandmother would often say the above phrase. It plays on the fact that in Spanish to wait is esperar and to despair is to desesperar. Desesperar is close enough to the English equivalent of despair.
Since I can remember I have been waiting. As a little boy in Buenos Aires it was anxiously waiting for the 6th of January, the Epiphany when I would put my shoes outside the door and the Three Wise Kings would bring me presents the next day. Midnight Mass seemed interminable before I could return home to see what Santa Claus had left under our tree.
There were days when a classroom period at school would never end. As I began to grow up I learned about bureaucracy and how my mother waited for passports and visas.
Many years
later in the late 80s I would wait for the odd rumbling of Rosemary’s five
cylinder Audi when she would return from home. I would have dinner waiting for her. This was pleasant waiting.
For those who have gotten this far I will not make you wait much longer. At least a couple of years before Rosemary died on December 9, 2020 I coined the expression initials WTD. Rosemary hated them because she knew they stood for waiting to die.
Most will give you the advice that this is pessimistic and that one must find distractions to prevent such black-cloud thoughts.
As it is now with me, when I am giving my two cats, Niño and Niña their dental treats at around 7:30 in the evening it seems like the previous, “Treats, treats!” happened a few minutes before.
When there are no financial worries, no obligations, living alone in a pandemic and the phone never rings the emptiness that confronts me takes me back to WTD.
There is some solace. One is to walk with Niño around the block on nice days or to prepare a meal for the once (sometimes twice) a week visit by my youngest daughter Hilary.
There is the pleasant waiting of realizing that spring is almost here and I can see the new growth in my roses. Rose pruning in early March will be a nice distraction to look forward to.
Short of me suddenly getting sick I can expect a few more years of waiting between these distractions.
It is pleasantly difficult to go through my extensive files and for this red-blooded male of the 20th century to look through my photographs of beautiful women. This is a distraction that is difficult to share in this difficult century.
I am modern
enough to banter pleasantly with Air Canada flight attendants and discuss how
we feel about our grandchildren. I smile and say nothing when I watch a few of
these attendants walk the thin airplane aisles with little room to spare on
either side. I applaud the Airline for having modified their standards. I only
wonder why the male flight attendants are all young and pleasant looking.What are we waiting for to correct this anomaly?
So today I will feature Anastasia. I have written quite a few blogs about her.
We met for our session in the best room of the infamously shabby Marble Arch Hotel. Of course I used lights. I gave few posing instructions. Anastasia seemed to know what I wanted even if I was unsure myself.
I believe these photographs will persist in my imagination and perhaps soon some other Anastasia will suddenly appear and provide me with a distraction and make me forget WTD.
There is of course that most beautiful word in Spanish that can also be a woman's name. This is esperanza. It means hope and only Spaniards would coin a word so close to despair.
