Legātus

Eight or nine years ago when Rosemary and I still lived in our large  home in Kerrisdale sometimes I would tell her when we would drive to visit our Lillooet, BC daughter Alexandra that I might hire a professional arsonist to burn the house down. She understood the relief we might have had to return and find nothing.

Now with her gone I live alone surrounded by valuable stuff (we lived in Mexico for many years so we have pottery, etc). It weighs me down in my mind.

I am 82 and I can plainly state that the idea of legacy is diminishing to almost nothing. Once I have reached my oblivion I do not care what happens to all my photographs or negatives. Who will have ample wall space to put up all the framed family photographs?

My friend Djun Kim (a digital genius) is in the process of transferring my web page/blog from a company in Texas that handles my domain name and web hosting to one in Vancouver. When I am dead if my daughters want to keep my blog going (6353 before this one) they will have to pay a yearly fee to the company.

Friends tell me I should publish a book. Would it be possible to have a book with at least 12000 pages? Would I want such a book?

No.

I tell people here that a peculiar feature in the memory of our city inhabitants is that we ignore well known people when they are alive to then speak of them eloquently when they are dead. Such is the case (my opinion) of how George Bowering (Canada’s first Poet Laureate, and George McWhirter, Vancouver’s first Poet Laureate) are ignored.

I wrote to a female friend on CBC Radio and suggested she might want to do a story on Don Stewart’s MacLeod Books. She quickly answered that her producers were not interested. I further told her that she could interview me about my photography career while alive or would she wait for me to be dead.

And thus my notion of legacy has thinned.

I first had some knowledge of the term legacy when I was eight years old in Buenos Aires. It happened to be the centenary of famous Argentine patriot General Don José de San Martín and Juan Domingo Perón issued a memorial publication that was given to every child in school in the country. To this day I have treasured it. It has yellowed with age. I read it often.

In the scan there are three articles that I believe when I am dead will have no meaning to those I leave behind. The wooden cross I found on the beach in Veracruz where my mother lived. I converted it as a necklace and gave it to her. The watch (it works perfectly) was given to my mother by my mother. She often told me that it was the only valuable item he ever gave her. The pearls (you might note that they are not perfectly round and are slightly indented) are what my mother called barok (that’s how she pronounced baroque).

Such is this world where black wall phones have disappeared that few now dress up to go to the opera or a party and wear jewels. I have not worn a suit or a tie for at least one year.

I have a box, hidden away in my photo studio where I store these slightly less valuable jewels. Many are called “joyería de fantasía”. My mother and grandmother would go to an avenue called Cabildo in Buenos Aires in search of these not so valuable jewels. The really valuable ones are in a safety deposit box at my bank. My daughters have keys and access. Will they ever wear them? I doubt it.

Part of my childhood upbringing was watching my mother and grandmother open their large jewellery box to select what they were going to wear for that evening’s performance or party. I was always dazzled. They would explain the story behind every one of them.

It saddens me to understand that those memories will die with me. I wonder what memories my two daughters and two granddaughters will have of my Rosemary and me. I will never know.

Because I live in a double duplex the possibility of my personal arson of my digs is out of the question.