Rosemary Waterhouse-Hayward

Corina Poore

Susy Bornstein

Vivir consiste en construir futuros recuerdos- El Túnel de Ernesto Sabato

Living consists in building future remembrances.

Today I went with Hilary to see the just-released film about Bob Dylan – The Complete Unknown. After this fine film I was driving Hilary home and I immediately knew that I would write this.

Musically I have always been an idiot. When my Lomas High School Students in Mexico City asked me if I like Alice Copper I replied,”No, who’s she?” Ditto when a connoisseur friend asked me about Carmina Burana.

I was saved from musical perdition by 3 women.

The first, Corina Poore my first real girlfriend in Buenos Aires in 1966 who was not Argentine because she was born in Uruguay introduced me to Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Peter Paul and Mary by singing their songs with her fine voice and guitar playing. I had no idea of what folk music was all about.

The second woman was my second girlfriend. Susy Bornstein was Argentine. She said I was culturally impaired. She took me to the Teatro Colón to see my first operas. One was The Fiery Angel by Prokofiev and the other Orpheus ed Euridice by Gluck. Then she forced me to go to see a film called Help!. To this day that is my fave Beatles song.

The reason I was so musically impaired was that I had adopted a liking for jazz before I met these women. I liked Miles Davis,Dave Brubeck,Stan Getz and Gerry Mulligan.

Back in Mexico in 1967 I met Rosemary who introduced me to her likes. By the time we were living in Arboledas, Estado de México she liked for me to play Tapestry by Carole King and she thought            Donovan was lovely. If I played any Piazzolla she would leave to her room as she knew that Piazzolla would remind me of Argentina and my two former girlfriends.

She did like Peter, Paul and Mary but I never did confide that Mary’s straight blonde hair and bangs reminded me of her.

As I watched the film with Hilary the thoughts of those former women of my life coincided with Ernesto Sábato’s quote on memory.

Driving Hilary to Burnaby on Lougheed Highway, means I pass by the corner of Springer Avenue, where we lived when we moved to Vancouver. I try not to look but I can sense it and memories pour in.

I would modify Sábato’s sentence to:

Living in the present consists in building future memories from our past.