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| Susana Bornstein - Buenos Aires - 1966 |
In these pages I write often of my idea that what makes us human is our enhanced ability to associate disparate ideas. I call it our Bunny Watson. This blog is a Bunny Watson blog. Here,below, is a link explaining the term as writer Bill Richardson explained in his radio show.
My Rosemary would gently tell me to do stuff around the house. “Alex the kitty litter box smells. We have to change it.” “Alex make the bed neat, so that Niño and Niña can sleep on it.”
Rosemary would hint at stuff that was bothering her. For many years she placed breath mints on my night table when I used to smoke. In our last years here in Kitsilano before she died, I would run out of shaving cream. I would always find an extra one in the bathroom cupboard. She always catered to my needs.
I remember her now especially when I change the kitty litter or make up the bed in the morning and stretch the bedspread nice and tight. Doing stuff for the cats does not replace me taking care of Rosemary but it does help to keep me with the distraction of dealing with felines that somehow are more human as days go by.
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| Niño & Niña with bed not yet made neat |
I was thinking about this today when Susy Bornstein suddenly appeared in my thoughts. She was the second girlfriend I had in Buenos Aires in 1966.
When I would visit her, as I was about to leave for my pension in the evening, she would open her fridge and lovingly would make me a Swiss Cheese sandwich. She knew I liked cheese. I would then go to wait for my bus. I never did tell her that the buses would be on unannounced strikes and many a time I had to walk a long distance home. With my two dollar a month (not changed since around 1902) Argentine Navy military pay, I could not afford a cab.
Susy or Susana as I sometimes called her, thought I was an uncultured philistine. She persuaded me to attend two operas at the Teatro Colón, Prokofiév’s The Fiery Angel and Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice. She took me to see Help! and to see a troubling but wonderful Japanese film The Woman of the Dunes.
One wintry and rainy Buenos Aires she called me tell me to
never contact her again and that I would always be uncultured and would have
no future. When I returned to Buenos Aires in 1987 I rang her door bell. When
she opened she said, “Aren’t you going to kiss me?” Susy died of cancer a few years later.
I often told my Rosemary that I never stopped loving my former girlfriends. I never dumped any of them. Only Susy dumped me.
I remember that loving smile when she was preparing my cheese sandwich. And I remember Rosemary (and then Susy) when I change the kitty litter and make the bed neat.
