Davide Merino circa late 90s

As a portrait and magazine photographer in Vancouver since the late 70s, I can ascertain that I have photographed people in the thousands. Because I am 82 many are dead or have disappeared.

Due to some of the remnants that we are still experiencing because of the covid pandemic, keeping friends (those that are left) is tough. Many only want to text, refusing to talk on the phone, or in having coffee to chat.

I met Mexican born painter and Vancouver resident David Merino sometime at the end of that last century. I wrote about him in link below.

Moses comes down the mountain

I believe that my portrait of him is one of my best. 

We met at Samuel Frid's Threshold Gallery. 

My show at the Threshhold Gallery

We then lost touch and I spotted him walking in my Kits neighbourhood about a year ago. He was on his way to a nearby café and invited me to accompany him. I was invited again. He has a friend who is also Mexican who is graphic designer. Something was said and I became angry and stormed out. I felt bad but I let the situation stand. I felt guilty.

Then a couple of months ago I again saw Merino on my street and I apologized to him. We have become friends again.

It is important, so I feel, to keep one’s friends. It was not difficult to apologize. Now I have a friend with whom I can discuss art in Spanish. He has all his hair but now it is a lovely blend of white and gray. I have a feeling I will ask for him to pose again.

I was an idiot.

My abuelita (grandmother) often told me, “No hay mal que por bien no venga.” That translates to something like, “Bad things happen for good reasons.”

Before Rosemary died on 9 November 2020, the orange man was president of the US. At our breakfast in bed, she with her iPhone and me with my Galaxy 5 would check on his latest stupidities. Every day at 6 we would watch Rachel Maddow on MSNBC.

Our time was occupied with reading and viewing everything related to happenings down south.

I would like to point out now, how positive my life has suddenly become. I like to relate that to the overdue library book syndrome and my Maserati Biturbo (the worst car I ever owned). I would escape the worry about the book by putting it into a drawer. “Out of sight, out of mind”, people say. For 9 years my Maserati, everything wrong that could happen to a car had happened, was inside our Kerrisdale garage. I could not see it. The problem did not exist.

Now I realize that I don’t want to watch the news and there is now little in my daily delivered NY Times that I want to read as it no mi piace (Italian for it does not please me).

Suddenly, after yesterday, I am enjoying reading for pleasure. I am not reading heavy duty books. I am currently reading this Colin Dexter book. I had read all his others years ago (no memory in my mind about them). It is now a pleasant discovery what a lovely writer he is.

With time in my hands I will read books. What fun! And Niño and Niña on the bed heartily approve.

Cyclamen coum 7 November 2024

My mother often told me how her father, Tirso de Irureta Goyena had taken her to a toy shop a week before her birthday to choose her present. He died a few days later. On the day of her birthday a package arrived at the door with the doll house she had picked an it included a signed birthday card. My mother who, was a little girl went to her mother, Dolores Reyes de Irureta Goyena and told her that her father had not died and the gift was the proof. My mother wrote a lovely poem called the posthumous gift.

A Posthumous Gift - My Mother's Poem

Today in my mail box there was only one piece of mail it was from the Vancouver SPCA addressed to Rosemary. Inside there was a lovely brochure with photographs of dogs and cats who had received care thanks to people like Rosemary who had contributed funds.

Looking at the photographs of the pets and Rosemary’s name on the envelope with our Kits address I felt sad but at the same time wondering if I was much younger it would all be proof that Rosemary was alive and well and upstairs on the bed. “Alex did we get any mail?”

Rosemary had a few obsessions for things like expensive Italian leather purses and scarfs. We would take our pick of the scarfs on any winter day. We shared an expensive Pendelton we went to Seattle to buy.

One day she gave me this soft cashmere scarf which is the only one I now wear. Its softness is all about Rosemary’s softness.

Today on my way to buy corn tortillas at Fresh is Best on Broadway I passed a flower shop. Outside they had these very beautiful white Cyclamen coum. I could not resist. Rosemary loved them and as a connoisseur she especially liked their marbled leaves. I knew that the moment I got home I would scan the plant. It was a tad tough as I had to balance from a bamboo stick the flower pot upside down. I managed.

The scarf is Rosemary’s softness (she never shouted, always soft-spoken). The cyclamen is Rosemary’s purity of heart.

I remember very well what I was doing on Monday 3 November 1952. I was 10 years old and I attended an American school in Buenos Aires called American Grammar School. Because my mother taught at the nearby high school I was given a scholarship as she could not have paid the high fees.

With my friends at recess (it was a hot Buenos Aires summer) we were running around screaming, “Eisenhower in the shower!” I have no idea who had told us about the presidential elections on the next day but somehow our man was Adlai Stevenson and not the general from Addison, Texas.

What did we know about these two forthright men? We were innocent and oblivious.

I remember very well what I was doing one 26 September, 1960. I was in our pool hall (Juniors & Seniors had that privilege) of my Roman Catholic boarding school St. Edward’s High School in Austin, Texas. We were not playing pool. We were watching the first TV debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. Because Nixon was not wearing any Max Factor makeup that UV light penetrating TV lighting was making him look terrible.

There was then a form of misinformation. People against Kennedy were saying that he would have to obey his boss, the pope in Rome.

We were happy when he won. In 1962 our school annual The Edwardian was dedicated to Kennedy, who was then President of the United States. I must also add that on a previous page there was a large colour photograph of Pope John XXIII.  After writing this blog I read that dedication. It still stands particularly today 6 November 2024

In 1960, Austin was the most liberal city in Texas. In our school we had black students local Latinos and many more from Latin America.

First Man of the Land

Fall with Lauri Stallings - 5 November 2024

Autumn – Emily Dickinson

The morns are meeker than they were,

The nuts are getting brown;

The berry's cheek is plumper,

The rose is out of town.

The maple wears a gayer scarf,

The field a scarlet gown.

Lest I should be old-fashioned,

I'll put a trinket on.

I am sure that I am not the only one today, 5 November, 2024 worried about elections in the United States of America.

A Mexican journalist at the beginning of the 20^th century said, “¡Pobre México, tan lejos de Dios y tan cerca de Estados Unidos!”​​

That translates to, “Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States.”

Going to get some eye drops at Shopper’s Drug Mart and buying fruits and vegetables for dinner tonight with Hilary was a pleasant distraction on what is a sunny day.

And of course scanning fall colours involving a portrait I took years ago of Ballet BC dancer Lauri Stallings put me in the mood to get on my bed with Niño and Niña. It will be impossible to not think of my Rosemary and what she would say about the elections in the USA. She died on 9 December 2020 when Trump was still president. In the morning over break fast in bed, during the man’s presidency we would compare notes on what he had done the day before as seen in our phones and our daily delivered (hard copy) NYTimes.

Tonight Hilary and I will be visiting our Welsh neighbours, the Galsworthys to watch the proceedings in the US on BBC.

More Emily Dickinson blogs

A Favourite Just Noticed 

All the Witchcraft that we need 

It only gives our wish for blue 

My heart is laden 

Of bronze and blaze

The red and the white 

A Lady Red

Hands 

I took my power in my hands 

That clarifies the sight 

 Nature rarer uses yellow

Rosemary white and a bit of yellow 

Nature rarer uses yellow

Luck is not chance 

T is iris sir 

The white heat

I tried to be a rose 

nature rarer uses yellow 

The Tulip

Nor would I be a poet 

November left then clambered up
You cannot make remembrance grow
November
the maple wears a gayer scarf