My Rosemary's 9 beds

A major event in my life every week happens when I place my sheets and pillow cases into the wash. After making the bed in the evening (the cats wait for me to finish before they jump on the bed) I have a thorough bath including washing my hair. The act of getting into a clean bed, all clean myself, is rewarding.

But that brings is a melancholy as Rosemary and I did that for 52 years. We made the bed together. On our Stickley bed, the stretching of the bottom sheet was a tough job.

Making a bed with Rosemary was something most intimate.We would look at each other. It was an intimacy shared that might have brought us into an immediate reality.

With her gone on December 9, 2020, I miss all those intimacies we shared. Of course there was the sex. But I must add that simply touching her back when we were in bed after turning off the lights was intimate, too. Morning breakfasts in bed, with our Vancouver Sun and New York Times, I miss especially now. I have breakfast in bed.

When my Niño and Niña get into bed with me, I cannot stop thinking that she petted them. My cats are a direct connection with a woman with whom I shared a life for so many years.

I cannot say I shared stability with Rosemary. She was the stable one, I was not.  On our bed with her iPhone she was able to plan our travels abroad and she even managed to get the best airline rates by directly calling the airline companies.

Looking at her plants in my Kitsilano garden I get the intimate memories of her planting them and telling me why she liked each one of them.

Looking at a rose in the garden is like looking at her lovely face.

I am unable to get into my tub without thinking the many times we bathed together. Alone in my tub I can imagine her already on the bed waiting for me to get in.

My life now is one of unceasing intimacies remembered.

Rosa 'Sexy Rexy' 23 September 2024

A week back when I projected some slides at the Gallery881 slide night I was asked for the difference between film and digital photography. I unexpectedly to the audience I answered with one word, “unpredictable”.

In all the years I shot film I made as many mistakes as were possible and then some. There is that element of the unforeseen (and sometimes pleasant) surprise that I like about shooting film.

Showing your subject the result of every shot, with the back of your camera display, in my opinion, dampens the flow.

When I saw Rosa ‘Sexy Rexy’ today, it most certainly is not at its perfection. That might have happened four or five days ago.

I am going to bring Rosemary into this blog. When I first met her sometime around December 15^th, 1967 she was perfect. She was flawless. Her legs were stellar. Her face reminded me of Mary Travers and Eva Marie Saint.

52 years later Rebecca took our portrait three months before Rosemary died. She was wearing her wedding dress which I must state is in perfect shape.

31 July 2020

Looking at the portrait of us both connects with me the scan here of Sexy Rexy. There is a beauty in the imperfection. It is a delicate imperfection.

Rosemary and I liked to parade around the house with not much on. We took frequent shared baths in our tub. She would have noticed, as I did, that our bodies were imperfect.

We had bedroom shenanigans until just a few months before she died.

I can now assert (I cannot imagine that in the past I would have known this) that I am not interested in young women in yoga pants, the parade of gluteus maximus or red carpet cleavage. The only woman who stirs in mind moments of desire is my dead Rosemary.