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| Rosa 'Margaret Merrill' 30 May 2023 |
When I tell people of the death of my Rosemary they invariably tell me, “You have your memories.” I rarely answer but I am as just as incensed as the recent cliche of wishing people a happy belated birthday.
Of memory Jorge Luís Borges said it best even though it is an understatement of simplicity.
In order to remember you must first forget.
In his defence I must add that he wrote many lovely little poems and stories of going to his childhood home and feeling the presence of his father among the smells of geraniums and ferns.
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| Rosa 'Margaret Merrill' 30 May 2023 |
We live in a linear world first describe by that pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus who said we can never dip on the same spot of a river twice. Water keeps moving.
Another expression and cliche is the statement that people make of about now making much about something that has happened as it is “water under the bridge”.
In the last few years I have given thought to the opposite of remembering. This is to pin in a moment in my past where I might have then thought of how that would affect my future.
It seems that important events in our life are more often seen as important later on.
What would be the equivalent of touching a spot of water on a river and then running forward a few meters and perhaps hitting that same spot again?
Yes I have memories and I have objects of my past that bring those memories forward. I will now postulate the difference in having memories when one is a portrait photographer and most of the photographs of my family I took and I remember the circumstances.
The photograph of Rosemary and our first daughter Alexandra taken in 1968 in Veracruz during a “Norte” (really a Caribbean hurricane) when we visited my mother who taught in a one room schoolhouse fo Alcoa Aluminum children is ever present as it is prominently displayed in my living room.
The memory of Veracruz, my mother, the smells of the port city, the noises increased by sea level that we did not experience in Mexico City, the coffee at the Parroquia on the zocalo, the clanging of the streetcars, the music of the marimbas under the portales, watching Rosemary taking endless showers to escape the stifling heat and humidity, watching her feed Ale, going to Mocambo Beach in our VW and ever more memories come rushing to me by just looking at the framed photograph.
And I must add the supreme luxury of being in bed with Rosemary with us in no clothes, on crisp white sheets in a house that was not airconditioned.
I remember that I took the photograph with Kodak Tri-X (I have the negative in my files) with a Pentacon-F camera and a Komura 80 mm lens.
And what of all the other framed photographs of Rosemary, Ale, Hilary and her daughters Rebecca and Lauren?
I might challenge Borges that in order to remember I must not forget. I must simply look at the portraits on the wall.
The rose here is a floribunda rose called Rosa ‘Margaret Merrill’ that Rosemary adored. I did not make it to our Kitsilano garden. I was able to replace it only after Rosemary had died. I wrote about it here.
Smelling this lovely white ghost (it seems to be one) brings me memories of that other ghost that is Rosemary. She would delight at seeing it in all its glory today 30 May 2023.
Again I challenge Jorge Luís Borges. I don’t have to forget to remember. All I have to do is smell a glorious white rose.
