Rosa 'Bathsheba' & Clematis 'Taiga' 13 July 2024

Today I was thinking of this blog with the title Almost, Somewhat, Not Quite in relation that for the first time in 7 months I sat down to watch TV (MSNBC). It had to be with Rosemary's fave, Rachel Maddow, and a plate of barbecued chicken wings and sipping Rosemary’s favourite Italian blood orange soda she called “the pink stuff’. In a hot Saturday afternoon it is was almost like I was waiting, as I was sitting on the hanging chair, for Rosemary to come down and join me.

The almost became the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.

As I write this my cat Niño is sitting on a bench next to me in my oficina. I have finished scanning Rosemary’s favourite clematis, Clematis ‘Taiga’ with a pale English rose so new when she died that she might not yet have considered it one of her faves. To me the colour resembles the femininity and gentleness of her.

I will be 82 on August 31 and no matter how many distractions I invent for myself I know that I am really waiting for that joint oblivion with Rosemary. No matter what my daughters and friends tell me, my life not shared with Rosemary, is not much of a life.

It is a life that is made to have a somewhat meaning with the company of my Niño and Niña.

Niño - 8 July 2024

El 9 de julio or the 9th of July is when Argentines celebrate their Independence from Spain. It happened in the city of Tucumán.

While I lived for many years in Mexico and have been in Vancouver since 1975, it is impossible for me to not have nostalgia for my place of birth.

I was born in 1942 and by 1948 we were living in the Cohglan barrio of Buenos Aires. It  was named for an English railroad engineer. My father’s father Harry was from Manchester but George Waterhouse Hayward (no hyphen) was born in Buenos Aires. He worked as a journalist  for the in English Buenos Aires Standard and Buenos Aires Herald. My mother often told me (and I developed a fear of dancing) that when she and my father went to dance at the cafés on Leandro N. Alem,  people would stop dancing to watch them dance the tango.

My father was very Argentine but in many ways he was awfully English. He did smoke Player's Navy Cut cigarettes and wore Harris Tweed jackets.

By 1950, when Perón was in power, the 9 de julio (dates are not capitalized in Spanish) was celebrated with a very large military parade complete with Sherman tanks. Our neighbour’s, on one side of our house, would turn on their radio full blast and I could hear Perón talking (almost shouting) until he went hoarse. Then his wife Evita would take over. Those two voices are permanently embedded in my memory.

But there was a pleasant side to the holiday. My father would enarbolar ( a nice word that means to unfurl a flag) his very large wool flag (perhaps bought at the end of the 30s) and he would display it with ropes tied to our large and tall garden palm tree.

At my age of 81, I understand that having that flag in my possession as well as his mate (from 1940), is a rare situation that will have no meaning to my daughters and granddaughters once I am dead.

It is a bittersweet  feeling that today 8 July, was ameliorated by seeing my Niño on the dining room table right on top of the folded flag. I was planning on doing some sort of selfie but it seems that Niño knew best.

My youngest daughter, Hilary who was born in Mexico, feels very Argentine and she follows fulbol closely. Tomorrow we are going to the Hollywood Theatre, around the corner from my house to watch the Canada/Argentina football game. Who are we going to root for?

Hypericum perforatum 8 July 2026

 

St. John's wort (Hypericum perforatum) is a flowering shrub native to Europe. It gets its name from the fact that it often blooms on the birthday of the biblical John the Baptist, June 24th.

The flowers and leaves of St. John's wort contain active ingredients such as hyperforin. St. John's wort is available as a supplement in teas, tablets, liquids and topical preparations.People use St. John's wort to treat depression and menopausal symptoms.

With very few exceptions I only scan the plants from my garden.Today I noticed on the path to the back lane one yellow flower of Hypericum perforatum, commonly known as St. John’s Wart.

I had never ever scanned one so I broke my self-imposed rule and cut the flower and leaves.

No matter what plant I look at it immediately reminds me of my Rosemary. She did not like yellow in the garden but for reasons she never explained to me she tolerated hypericum in our garden.

And so, another  plant with the face of my Rosemary.

I checked my Blogger search engine and in fact I had scanned Hypericum before. Here is the link

 Hypericum - 2007

Hypericum perforatum - Oct 2007

 

Rosa 'Buttercup' - 8 July 2024

 Of Bronze — and Blaze —
The North — tonight —
So adequate — it forms —
So preconcerted with itself —
So distant — to alarms —
An Unconcern so sovreign
To Universe, or me —
Infects my simple spirit
With Taints of Majesty —
Till I take vaster attitudes —
And strut opon my stem —
Disdaining Men, and Oxygen,
For Arrogance of them —

My Splendors, are Menagerie —
But their Competeless Show
Will entertain the Centuries
When I, am long ago,
An Island in dishonored Grass —
Whom none but Daisies — know.  Emily Dickinson

 In my garden I perceive beauty every day. I perceive a beauty I cannot seem to share since Rosemary died on 8 December 2020. My roses, especially, are trees that fall in a forest where I am the only beholder.

I have been reflecting on my plant scans, which I call scanographs. They make me be a scanographer. By noticing their beauty I enrich my personal life. It is of no consequence if nobody else notices “my pics”.

I have some big printed inkjets of my plant scans in my living room. People tell me they like my photographs. When I tell them that they are not photographs they turn around and lose interest.

Since I have been scanning plants, beginning in the summer of 2001, I have become very good at it. Doing the scans seems easy even when I fiddle with leaves. I now realize that the action of scanning is no different from watching a film on Netflix (I never do that). It is plain fun.

Best of all, is to see Rosa ‘Buttercup’ and be reminded of a lovely poem by Emily Dickinson that has the word copper. In other times I have used this other Dickinson poem when I scan a yellow flower or hosta leaf. Also this one by Robert Frost.

Yellow she affords - Emily Dickinson 

Nothing Gold Can Stay - Robert Frost 

 And more fun and why not?

Rosemary & Alexandra 1969 & Hosta 'El Niño'