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| Rosa 'Darcy Bussell' 19 May 2025 |
For the few who might read some of my blogs they might wonder why I often quote Latin American authors and particularly Jorge Luís Borges. It has to do that in my isolation in Vancouver from people who may read those authors I find comfort in associating my photographs, scanographs, memories and thoughts with those authors.
In particular I obsessively read some of Borges every day. I may in some way be the first to define him as the poet of the obvious. Consider what he said about memory - “in order to remember you must first forget.” It is obvious but how many of us dwell on the obvious?
In today’s blog I will meander on the topic of routine. I will pull a Borgesian and state that obviously routine has to do with “taking the same route”.
I have illustrated this blog with a nude portrait I took of my Rosemary in early 1969 or even perhaps in late 1968. We had met mid December 1967 and were married in Coyoacán, Mexico on 8 April 1968. I have no idea what led me to load my Asahi Pentax S-3 with Tri-X and to ask Rosemary to take her clothes off. I particularly like this one because of the direct but melancholic stare.
Once we moved to Vancouver in 1975 I was taking photographs of many women undraped by the late 70s. Alas, I never did ask Rosemary to pose for me nude again. I was a dolt stuck in my routine of taking photographs of women who would call me and ask me, “I need different photographs”.
It was sometime in 1998 when from my studio windows (Robson and Granville) I could see the huge white wall of Eaton’s that was across the street. One day in a little window they had I noticed a Filipino wicker tray. I bought it. Not much later when I purchased a yearly subscription to a hard copy New York Times, Rosemary and I began our daily breakfast in bed routine. We only broke it when we travelled or when we had guests for breakfast. Our breakfast routine was always in the company of our cat or two cats.
Rosemary died on 9 December 2020 and I have continued the breakfast routine with the company of Niño and Niña.
What is different besides the terrible absence of Rosemary?
What is important is that I no longer take routine as a given. I enjoy and think about how I enjoy every breakfast with my two cats. I know that one of us will soon go to our oblivion.
I treasure this routine as I treasure that of scanning my roses every day. I change my parameters and become, it seems more artsy from one day to the next. I scan the same (and new) roses every day. But I know that some will go and I will have to replace them with new unexplored roses. The beauty of routine then is change.
