Saturday, March 12, 2022

 

Rosemary and Ruth Healey

 

 

Make me a picture of the sun - Emily Dickinson

 

Make me a picture of the sun –

So I can hang it in my room.

And make believe I’m getting warm

When others call it “Day”!

 

Draw me a Robin – on a stem –

So I am hearing him, I’ll dream,

And when the Orchards stop their tune –

Put my pretense – away –

 

Say if it’s really – warm at noon –

Whether it’s Buttercups – that “skim” –

Or Butterflies – that “bloom”?

Then – skip – the frost – upon the lea –

And skip the Russet – on the tree –

Let’s play those – never come!

 

When I met my Rosemary sometime at the end of 1967 she was secretive about her former life and childhood. I did not know then that some Canadians can be withdrawn. In our 52 years of marriage I never did visit New Dublin, Ontario where she was raised, to my regret. Our daughters did a few times and in 2019 Rosemary, Alexandra and Hilary went there again and met all the other relatives.

I have this possible idea of driving, perhaps in April on my own, to New Dublin. This could be a bad idea as I would run into ghosts.

But then how can I run into the ghost of a little girl if I never did know Rosemary as a little girl?

All that changed when I noticed a cardboard box in our Kitsilano piano room with figurines. My daughter Ale’s handwriting identified what was to be found inside. Rosemary was called Abi by our eldest granddaughter and the name stuck. It is sort of short for abuelita, or little grandmother in Spanish. 

 

Rosemary and I often read Ogden Nash’s poems and the one about the little boy, that inexorably marries a little girl when they grow up, was one of our favourites.

I never thought of myself as that nasty little boy but looking at these figurines my heart dissolved into a melancholic grief, a tender one, as I marvelled at the novel idea that my Rosemary had been a little girl and I had never seen that in her. I was too blind, and somehow while a bit late, I am trying to make up for that infantile failure. 

Will I go to New Dublin and imagine my Rosemary as a little girl? I wish I could hug that little girl in the photograph.

 

Song To Be Sung by the Father of Infant Female Children - By Ogden Nash

My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky;

Contrariwise, my blood runs cold

When little boys go by.

For little boys as little boys,

No special hate I carry,

But now and then they grow to men,

And when they do, they marry.

No matter how they tarry,

Eventually they marry.

And, swine among the pearls,

They marry little girls.

 

 

 

Oh, somewhere, somewhere, an infant plays,

With parents who feed and clothe him.

Their lips are sticky with pride and praise,

But I have begun to loathe him.

Yes, I loathe with loathing shameless

This child who to me is nameless.

This bachelor child in his carriage

Gives never a thought to marriage,

But a person can hardly say knife

Before he will hunt him a wife.

 

I never see an infant (male),

A-sleeping in the sun,

Without I turn a trifle pale

And think is he the one?

Oh, first he'll want to crop his curls,

And then he'll want a pony,

And then he'll think of pretty girls,

And holy matrimony.

A cat without a mouse

Is he without a spouse.

 

Oh, somewhere he bubbles bubbles of milk,

And quietly sucks his thumbs.

His cheeks are roses painted on silk,

And his teeth are tucked in his gums.

But alas the teeth will begin to grow,

And the bubbles will cease to bubble;

Given a score of years or so,

The roses will turn to stubble.

He'll sell a bond, or he'll write a book,

And his eyes will get that acquisitive look,

And raging and ravenous for the kill,

He'll boldly ask for the hand of Jill.

This infant whose middle

Is diapered still

Will want to marry My daughter Jill.

 

Oh sweet be his slumber and moist his middle!

My dreams, I fear, are infanticiddle.

A fig for embryo Lohengrins!

I'll open all his safety pins,

I'll pepper his powder, and salt his bottle,

And give him readings from Aristotle.

Sand for his spinach I'll gladly bring,

And Tabasco sauce for his teething ring.

And an elegant, elegant, alligator

To play with him in his perambulator.

Then perhaps he'll struggle through fire and water

To marry somebody else's daughter.

Friday, March 11, 2022

 

The situation in Ukraine, to this man living alone with two cats in Kitsilano, is one of going to my phone early in the morning from my bed to check out on CNN the latest in the tragedy.

Being far from that place does not give me all that much comfort. I remember the days of the late 50s when in our boarding school in Austin we would listen to an alarm and we were then herded into the basement as a precautionary test for what was then called the possibility of a mutual assured destruction.

 

 

It is no longer a world where we can say, “I will go and live in the Argentine Patagonia.”

If have felt helpless until I contacted my Ukranian friend Olena Kuzyk. We discussed a project, and today, March 10, 2022 it came to fruition in what I would consider a spectacular fashion.

Olena is a master of makeup and with her Ukranian paraphernalia we had a successful session in my little studio. We were aided by my visiting musician (baroque bass, piano) Curtis Daily who lives in Portland. He skilfully converted a fat candle into a monument of wax drippings because Olena said we needed at least one candle.

What is the story behind the photographs we took?

It began some at least 24 years ago when my Argentine painter friend, Juan Manuel Sánchez was having coffee with friends in Buenos Aires. These friendly gatherings (usually of men in that past century) are called tertulias. The chosen topic of that day’s gathering was to state what was one’s favourite saint. When it arrived at Sánchez’s turn he said, “La Santa Conchita.” There must have been a roar of laughter.

Most women called Mary in Spanish speaking countries are not plane Marys. They may be María de Guadalupe, María del Perpetuo Socorro or in the case here María de la Inmaculada Concepción. These latter Marys are called Concepción for short and affectionately everywhere except Argentina, Conchita. We know that thanks to Linnaeus, who equated the sexual organs of conch shells to those of female humans, that there have been connections to private female parts in rude lingo.

In Argentina concha is what women have that men lack. It is a very bad word.

So Sánchez’s choice of saint was a joke but there was no motive to insult anybody or any women with it.

When Sánchez, his wife Nora Patrich and I started collaborating at the beginning of this century one of our projects was to depict ethnic Madonnas. I photographed four, an Argentine, a Chilean, a Vietnamese and an Egyptian. The exposure of skin in those Santa Conchita’s could never be shown here.

When I exhibited them in a joint show in Buenos Aires with Nora Patrich (by then Sánchez had died) most of my family did not show up saying “sos un blasfemo.”

But in remembrance of my mentor and friend Juan Manuel Sánchez, Olena and I decided that we had to keep the name of Santa Conchita when we added “de Ucrania”.

We feel that our collaboration has produced a strong image that represents our protest for what is happening in that country that may be far away, but has hit us home.

 

Thursday, March 10, 2022

 

Rosemary & Alexandra - Mocambo, Veracruz, 1969

Having lived in Argentina twice (1942 to 1954 and 1965 to 1967), in Mexico (1954 to 1964 and 1964 to 1975) with four years in a Texas boarding school (from 1958 to 1961) I am pleasantly confused as to where I am from or what I am. When I feel bored I use my memory to return to all those places in place and in time.

As an obsolete, redundant, retired & inconsequential photographer at my age of 79 I think about what is left of my life and what I want to remain of me once I am gone. I think of legacy. Luckily I also understand how important stuff (as in treasured objects) in one’s life becomes less so as one ages. Not believing in a hereafter, this legacy becomes even less significant. When Rosemary was alive I often told her that if I were to precede her into oblivion that she was not to place a park bench in my memory either in Kerrisdale or in some park.

 

Mocambo, Veracruz

Now since I am the one that is alive I think of her legacy and what she has left behind for me and our daughters and granddaughter. In this modern 21^st century young people are usually not interested in the belongings of grandparents unless it is cold cash.

I cannot put myself in my daughters’ or granddaughters’ head so I plod along sifting through stuff and keeping what I think they might appreciate.

Veracruz

 

Yesterday I went at the large box that contained all my corporate work. These are brochures and annual reports. I even have two for the now defunct Vancouver Stock Exchange. I would calculate that the box contained 100 of them. Some were in duplicates. At one time these brochures were part of that all-important portfolio that one used to get more work. Since for some of those logging company brochures I got to charge a $3000 daily fee I must ascertain that I made good money and that Rosemary skilfully combined it with her salary so that now I can live comfortably without any financial worries.

 

My mother - Filomena de Irureta Goyena and Alexandra

 

That means I have a lot of time. So I think not of my photographic legacy of the corporate kind but that of my family legacy. I have now for many months been going through all the negatives and slides of the family (I have very good family albums that preceded my marriage to Rosemary) that began in 1967. There are hundreds of potographs of our daughters and granddaughters. It is difficult for me to decide what goes and what stays. This means that most stays.

 

But this blog is about a contact sheet of colour negatives that were taken in 1968 and 1969. Some were shot by my friend Andrew Taylor who is my eldest daughter Alexandra’s godfather. Most of the photographs were from Rosemary and my (with Alexandra as a baby) visits to Veracruz to visit my mother. Andrew’s photos were taken inside the crater of the volcano El Nevado de Toluca and the very nice portraits of Rosemary and me Andrew took at the University of Mexico Botanical Garden. The blue VW was my first car. After that one we had a light brown one and our third was arctic white in which we drove to Vancouver.

Photo by Andrew Taylor, University of Mexico Botanical Garden

What I find amazing is that many of these photos are what I call iconic (and that word will somehow be in the title of this blog) and it so wonderful that they are still around. Some of the photographs I have had in my blogs but these were all colour prints from our family album. These colour negative have deteriorated and I did my best to make them look good.

 

I keep repeating in these recent blogs how enlarging the photographs of Rosemary and looking at them on my monitor is an exercise of grief that alternates with the pleasure of seeing a photograph that I took that I never ever printed before. And so I do repeat myself in stating that I see in some of these photographs, my Rosemary for the first time. I fall in love with her all over again and I I have a little of an issue realizing what she might have seen in this man without a country but at the same time I have been lucky to have had this woman with me for 52 years

Nevado de Toluca , Estado de México

Wednesday, March 09, 2022

 

What would make me get out of bed, past midnight with Niño and Niña comfortably nestled beside me?

It was the thought of the idea of a body and soul. What is it that is embedded in a human body that gives it that spark that we call life? How could it be that my Rosemary was alive and then not?

From spark I navigated to fire, and the image of scanning my hand while holding a lit match became a strong urge I had to satisfy. That the match flame quickly lost its size felt appropriate and seemed to predict gloom and coldness.

We all know that oxidation is all about decay. Cars rust and fires go out when they run out of material to keep burning.

Do we humans oxidize? Do we rust?

A picture that I cannot strike out of my mind is sitting on my living room egg chair with my two daughters and granddaughter Rebecca and watching the funeral people remove the lifeless body of my Rosemary. It was covered with a shroud but I could still feel that vacant presence of a body without life. This is an image that I cannot obliterate from my memory because the concept of a person being alive one moment and then dead a small second later is one that I cannot grasp. 

I cannot remember how we answered (or if we did) when Rosemary asked us, "Am I dying?"

Before the funeral people came I went up to our bedroom. Rosemary looked asleep. I knew this was not true. What broke my heart but also gave me a little comfort was that our female cat Niña was on her stomach asleep. And Niña indeed was asleep. I took the photograph that I had to take. I will never show it to my daughters but I have filed it into my Family File on my exterior hard drive. When I am gone perhaps the girls might spot the picture.

Do cats understand death better than we humans?

Every day I feel that vacant presence and I wonder if am not another fire running out of fuel.