Saturday, January 08, 2022

 

Rosemary's Florence purse. It makes me smile & then cry

While in Buenos Aires in December 2021 I kept telling my family and friends that I longed to return to my boring and stable Canada.

Going to the corner of Lavalle and Florida to change US Dollars into Argentine Pesos (206 to the Dollar) with my Cuban friend Yosvany (a perfectly legal procedure) was only slightly off-putting. Eating well kept me entertained as was conversing with my correntino first cousin Jorge Wenceslao de Irureta Goyena and my Irish/Argentine nephew Georgito O’Reilly.

But I know I could never live in a place where US Dollars make more interest inside a bank security box but not in a bank account. The next to 50% inflation is daunting. I could not live having to adapt and find ways of preventing financial failure or living in  country with two polarized political parties.

Here in Vancouver I have found a reluctance with folks to even talk on the phone. I have called quite a few people to only get a recording, “This mail box is full, call later.”

With others I get the distinct idea that when I call I am interrupting a-glue-on-the-TV situation. I don’t call them anymore. And then few call me. I may be persona non grata. 

Last year on my birthday, on August 31 I spotted a priest in Kerrisdale. I drove around the block and asked him to bless me. This he did. He told me in what parish  he worked and invited me to attend Sunday Mass. After the Mass I lined up and when I was finally facing him I told him I would like to chat with him. His answer, "I am very busy with my congregation. I do not have the time."

I long for more than my Canadian stability. I long for the awesome (I hate this word but it applies here) stability and clear head of my Rosemary. On her bed she could hold court for me and I always felt the world was just fine with her in it. I could go for her advice and I would get sound advice.

Now without her I am lost in the desert with nobody to go to.

Today I watched my two brother and sister cats, Niño and Niña, on my bed (after my breakfast) be as close together as they could while on my lap. This need for warmth, be it human or feline, confirms what it is that I miss in this boring and stable country.

I miss the warmth of my Rosemary.

 

 

Friday, January 07, 2022

 

January 6, 2022

On December 26, 2021 I gave a lecture on photography in Buenos Aires. Those attending squeezed me dry with questions. For the first time in a long while I felt useful.

Today January 7, 2022 I had the kind of day I believe I will have from now on unless something changes or I change it.

I woke up at 7:25 when Niño got on top of me. He is heavy. I was out of the bed by 7:45 and went downstairs and fed both Niño and Niña. I did not open the living room sliding door or the deck gate until 8:20 when there was more light for the cats. I made my breakfast.

Because I had run out of bread I had my vitamins and heart pills, orang juice, a big mug of strong tea and tortillas. I brought it up in the tray that Rosemary and I used to have our breakfast in bed.

Because of the previous day’s snow and no newspaper delivery today I had two New York Times and two Vancouver Suns.

After an hour Niño got on the bed with Niña who was already there. I began to experience a cabin fever that these days consists in a lack of conversation or seeing a person’s face and making eye contact. I have no distraction from that conundrum as I still do not have a phone. My drowned phone might be fixed next week.

I decided to collect the stuff I brought from Buenos Aires for Hilary and I drove (a nice sunny day) to the Burquitlam Safeway where she is the wellness manager. I bought her a mint/chocolate drink at the store Starbucks and had a short chat while carefully wearing two face masks. Somehow this divided my day a bit.

The problem is returning home. I cannot go on the HOV lane because the empty seat on the passenger seat has no Rosemary. Driving by places I went with Rosemary are a constant reminder of my loss. Thankfully I have a large paper town roll I use to dry my tears.

Once at home I have the next event to consider which is what I will have for my lunch/dinner. Once that is solved (barbecued chicken wings on my home barbecue) I watched a bit of Rachel Maddow. She had her day off so she was replaced by Ari Velshi. This made me remember that both he and Rosemary went to Queens University. I cannot stop associating, which is why I keep grieving.

At 7:30 I gave the cats their treats and I took my tub bath. Rosemary would usually say, “Alex leave the water I think I want to get in.”

I brushed my teeth, put on my flannel nightgown and got into bed to read my National Geographic History and Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun.

I did not turn off the lights at 8pm as it seems I am doing so earlier every day. I decided to go to my oficina to write this “day in the life”.

The real issue is that because of my cats I feel that I am needed and thus I am useful to them. But there is nothing else these days that can dispel that my utility to anybody is of any importance.

Tomorrow I will wake up at 7:25. I will go down at 7:45 and feed the cats, then…

Thursday, January 06, 2022

 

A tocador in Spanish is a dresser. This article of furniture has been somehow present all my life. As a child watched my mother attach a fake hair ring to her very long hair for her hairdo which was much in Vogue in the 40s and then popularized by Eva Perón.

Because I knew that women needed to see themselves in a mirror we had a dresser in Mexico. But in Vancouver while I did purchase one for Rosemary she refused to use it an preferred sitting on the floor and did her makeup in front of our sliding door closet mirrors (both in our Kerrisdale home and her in Kitsilano). Rosemary liked to do lots sitting on the floor.

 

 

It was inside a dresser that I wrote this about the first time I realized I was an individual.

In my Robson Street (corner with Granville) studio I had a dresser (an antique mirror on a glass table) as I photographed many women writers, actresses and ladies of the stage. One such woman was Cheri. 

 

 

Wednesday, January 05, 2022

 

 

Máscaras – Mario Benedetti

No me gustan las máscaras exóticas

ni siquiera me gustan las más caras

ni las máscaras sueltas ni las desprevenidas

ni las amordazadas ni las escandalosas

 

no me gustan y nunca me gustaron

ni las del carnaval ni las de los tribunos

ni las de la verbena ni las del santoral

ni las de la apariencia ni las de la retórica

 

me gusta la indefensa gente que da la cara

y le ofrece al contiguo su mueca más sincera

y llora con su pobre cansancio imaginario

y mira con sus ojos de coraje o de miedo

 

me gustan los que sueñan sin careta

y no tienen pudor de sus tiernas arrugas

y si en la noche miran / miran con todo el cuerpo

y cuando besan / besan con sus labios de siempre

 

las máscaras no sirven como segundo rostro

no sudan / no se azoran / jamás se ruborizan

sus mejillas no ostentan lágrimas de entusiasmo

y el mentón no les tiembla de soberbia o de olvido

 

¿quién puede enamorarse de una faz delegada?

no hay piel falsa que supla la piel de la lascivia

las máscaras alegres no curan la tristeza

no me gustan las máscaras / he dicho

 

 

 

Tuesday, January 04, 2022

 

Because I first realized I (6) was me, starting at myself while stealing candy corn from my mother’s dresser, I have considered mirrors important in my life and especially so when I became a portrait photographer. I have taken hundreds of photographs using mirrors and seeming to find new ways and new tricks to do it.

A man who was obsessed with mirrors was Jorge Luís Borges and he kept writing about them even after he became blind.

 

 

My guess is that my only one upmanship over that favourite Argentine writer of mine is that he never wrote about a car rearview mirror. I have!