My grandmother whom I called Abuelita constantly taught me refrains from the Don Quijote de La Mancha and many more that she learned as a Little girl when going to school in Valencia  in the 19th century.

Sometimes she taught me stuff that was unkind. Of boring people she would say, “la  compañía del niño  muerto,” which translates to, “the company of the dead child.”

Eight years ago we adopted brother and sister cats that were called Mac and Cheese at the SPCA. They were about 6 years old. Rosemary and I liked to adopt cats that were middle-aged so that we could enjoy that mutual getting to know each other. I did not like the SPCA names so I named them Niño and Niña.

Niña became my cat and Niña adopted my Rosemary. They were our constant presence when we were in bed and they slept with us.

After Rosemary died on 9 December 2020 I found solace in the company of my cats. I would talk to them (mostly I Spanish) and I catered to their needs. This catering brought me a stability that I lacked in not having a partner, not needing to work and having too much time to think. One routine was taking Niño for his daily walk (no leash) around the block. Rosemary had taught him. Rosemary often told me, “When I am not around and you walk Niño be patient and don’t shout at him.”

On May 12 this year I woke up with Niño dead on my bed. It has been a devastating death ever so slightly ameliorated by the Niña’s constant warm presence. Somehow, and I am sure, she understands the concept of death. She has adopted all of Niño’s quirks (except walking around the block). I often ask her, “Do you remember Niño, Niño?”

She is my daily routine as is my daily bike ride. The bike ride divides the day and that activity adds a element of stability. I am not sure how I will handle the cold in December.  I would never bike in the rain.

I will have to cuddle with Niña on the bed and  we wil think of our Rosemary and Niño.

And so I can modify what my abuelita told me to , “Niña the company for a dead Niño.”

Evely Lau - 1989

 

19 September 2026

In 1989 I was called by a publicist called Nancy Flight asking me I would photograph a brand new 18-year-old poet called Evelyn Lau. The book was called Runaway: Diary of a Street Kid. I accepted. Flight asked me how I would photograph her. I told her I was going to do it on her bed. Flight was shocked. I told her, “She is still a teenager and she probably has a funny bedspread”. She did, it featured red balloons.

Today I went to room 

C225 at the Vancouver campus of University of British Columbia for the launching and the reading from her new book Parade of Storms. The book features poems related to what all people talk about these days- the weather.

Halfway through the talk Lau asked us to try to write a poem. A few of us did.

I decided to take the advice of:

 Baltasar Gracián (1601–1658) was a Spanish Jesuit priest, Baroque philosopher, and writer known as a master of conceptismo, a literary style characterized by witty, terse, and subtle expressions.

Here is my poem:

Evelyn

Eevelyn

Runaway returned

Balloons on the bed

A beginning

Deserved

Bottom left - Hosta 'Sun Power' right Hosta 'Whirlwind" and narrow on top Hosta 'Praying Hands' 19 September 2026

 

Every fall when I want to mate one of my autumn scans I usually end up with Emily Dickinson’s poem.

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.

As fall makes summer succumb, I invariably think of my Rosemary on her knees cutting back the spent flowers from the garden. That I have to do it on my own, adds to my fall melancholy. There is that next year and that spring with the promise of my roses coming into bloom. Suffice now to scan these fall hosta flowers which to my eyes are lovely and cannot be ignored.

Today Saturday after listening to Evelyn Lau (will write a blog after this one) and riding my bicycle it would seem that there is order to world. I will make myself a large mug of strong tea and feed Niña her treats at 8pm. I will then open The Heart Does Break – Canadian Writers on Grief and Mourning compiled by George Bowering and Jean Baird.  Not all that cheery.

Below - Hosta 'Antioch' & Hosta 'Strip Tease' 18 September 2026

Sometimes I think that nature is not all that sophisticated. When tourists go to Mexico many photograph the neat piles of fruits or vegetables in markets and often mention how symmetrical they are.

I tend to believe that in humans asymmetry is an indication of sophistication. Why must the headlights in cars have to be exactly one both sides?

Thanks to my Rosemary’s interest in gardening she approved of my sudden love for hostas around 1987. I became a member of the American Hosta Society soon after. In conventions judges eliminated hostas with asymmetrical leaves in any competition. Somewhat that all changed in 1991 when Hosta ‘Strip Tease’ was introduced. This hosta featured two tiny white lines around the middle that were never the same. To me this was the first asymmetrical hosta.

Today as I was walking around the garden I noticed my very large Hosta ‘Antioch’(also named Moerheim). It is an old faithful hosta that I have had since the late 1980s and is the one in the pot outside my garden gate door.

I could not resist scanning one very unsymmetrical one with one of Strip Tease.

Some years ago I wrote an essay for asymmetry in a very good photographic web page called Zone Zero. Here it is.

Zone Zero

On the other hand these leaves today of  Rosa 'Emily Carr' display fine asymmetry.

Rosa 'A Shropshire Lad' 17 September 2026

XI A Shropshire Lad – A. E.Houseman

 Yonder see the morning blink:

  The sun is up, and up must I,

To wash and dress and eat and drink

And look at things and talk and think

  And work, and God knows why.

Oh often have I washed and dressed

  And what's to show for all my pain?

Let me lie abed and rest:

Ten thousand times I've done my best

  And all's to do again.

I did not start to read and appreciate poetry until some years ago I first heard Vancouver poet Gerry Gilbert. Before that I disliked poetry as in school we were given extra grade points if we memorized one. I must have had a learning disability that went beyond my dyslexia.

Now I have fun finding poems to match my photographs or scans. I have written here before how  my friend,Vancouver poet Jamie Reid (he often boasted he was a member of the Canadian Communist Party), inspired me to read Houseman’s Shropshire Lad. I am constantly reminded of him as one of my best roses is the English Rose Rosa ‘A Shropshire Lad’. When my other roses have given up the ghost this one keeps blooming. Is what you see here yet another “boring” scan of the rose?

Houseman’s poem above pretty well describes my life as an 84-year-old man who misses his Rosemary and finds some comfort in my female cat Niña. I don’t have to do anything on any given day except feed her and feed myself. My existential angst on knowing I am waiting to die is best explained in that line – And all’s that to do again.

One of the changes in photography is the insistence by new and younger photographers to define methods with initials. About a week ago I discovered ICM. It means intended camera movement. Usually this includes not only moving your camera but also using a slow shutter.

This sort of thing was difficult with film as you had no idea of what you would get until your film was processed. Digital photography has opened a whole new and exciting world. I have used this method with dance be it ballet or modern dance.

But I want to brag that I also use it in my little studio and did so with fabulous results when I photographed Kira, two years ago. She is a Russian babushka who has two grandchildren.

I used a method in which I placed her on my gray wall and lit her with a flash in a softbox. On the opposite wall I have a large Ikea mirror. I crouched down and photographed what I saw in the mirror. A similar situation was to put her on that opposite wall and then see myself in the mirror plus her out of it.

Rosa 'A Shropshire Lad' - 15 September 2026

A few years ago Australian journalist Jonathan Swan asked President Trump to comment on the many Americans who had died of covid. His answer was, “It is what it is.”

I have a Korean friend. Djun Kim, who is a digital genius and with his wife they are professional ballroom dancers. I told him Swan’s story and his answer was, “Alex that is a thought stopper.”

Every day I am confronted by thought stoppers particularly when I tell friends how sad I am because I miss my wife Rosemary who died on December 9, 2020. They mostly say, “I am sorry.”  Some advise me to, “Find distractions,” or “Go see a councellor.” Some even suggest, “You should meet some women.”

My youngest daughter, who is going through a messy separation after a 30-year marriage, gets lots of thought stoppers like, “Go dancing to meet some men.” Driving my 56 year-old daughter last night she told me,“Papi I am not interested in other men or having a relationship.”

Luckily tonight I am going to my monthly Vancouver Rose Society where I will have all kind of sweet goodies to eat and decent coffee or tea. I will talk about innocuous stuff like telling some of the folks that my best rose right now is Rosa ‘A Shropshire Lad’.

When I am asked how I am my answer is my usual, “I am terrible because I am Argentine. But I could be worse if I were a Venezuelan or a Colombian.”

While may seem funny is it a funny thought stopper? I don’t want to answer about my isolation and loneliness in which my only comfort is my female cat Niña.