Camellia sasanqua 'Yuletide'

A Yuletide Memory Postponed
 

Time confuses me as I thought that I had purchased a Camellia sasanqua ‘Yuletide’ just in the last four years. That could not be the case as Rosemary died on Dec 9 2020 and for at least three years before she would nag me in about the second week of December to go and look for this camellia that blooms near Christmas. It seemed that the camellia was not all that hardy and it would die.

This year my camellia survived from last year but (a big but) it did not bloom until a few days ago. Why would this be? My suspicion is that those camellias from the past were grown in a greenhouse so they were forced to bloom earlier.

Whichever I look at this I can only smile when I enter or leave my house as my camellia is on a stone block outside. It has only two blooms. I cut them both for this blog without having second thoughts.

This camellia, like all the plants in my garden, have (flowers or not) the lovely face of my Rosemary.

Rosemary - Burnaby - 1975 - Polaroid

In the Barnes not quite a novel Departure(s) there is a lot of Marcel Proust’s concept involving a rushing memory when a biscuit, a Madeline, was dropped into tea – “Proust and madeleine: Together in the thalamus. When that happened it created an involuntary autobiographical memory – IAM. Worse (or is it better?) is HSAM – highly superior autobiographical memory.

I am bombarded by the latter phenomenon. An example is my memory of my friend, now gone Sean Rossiter who asked me, “Was she wearing that sensational red dress?” when I told him I had gone to photograph Carole Taylor.

In this 21^st century I abhor the constant use of some words. Two of them are iconic and stunning.

When I first started as a magazine photographer here in Vancouver in the late 70s I had no idea what art directors wanted of me. When I got to know them better I had a trick. I would print the contact sheet or sheets and show them to the art director, in the beginning it was Rick Staehling at Vancouver Magazine. He would pick the image. I would then drive home having in my car, an already printed 8x10. I would return the next day. I did not want him to know that I could do this.

But it was in the beginning when we arrived to Vancouver in 1975 that I shot a Polaroid of Rosemary in our Burnaby home. I quickly put it in a box and forgot it. It was only perhaps 3 or 4 years ago that I found it and I was amazed at my visual stupidity. It is framed and in my guest bathroom, a place frequent as I am an old man.

The photograph is sensational. I will not say it is iconic.

Looking at the photograph now I can see that her elegant hands are not quite right. It was in the early 80s that Rosemary told me the importance of hands in a portrait. When I began to photograph ballet and modern dance I connected with the right way of positioning hands. I can see our Mexican made wedding ring that has a blue enamelled band in the middle. I wear mine proudly. 

My Rosemary was a sensational woman. 

When my Rosemary was around we had heart to heart conversations. We compared notes on our doubts and feelings. With her gone I know of nobody I can call or see to talk about all that.

My youngest daughter says I should avoid being negative as people will avoid me. I think of that and the myriad of excuses you get when you want to talk to someone on the phone. One recent one involved me having to dial 3. Once I did that a recorded voice told me something like – Let me see if the person you want to talk to is available. After a longish wait I was told – This person cannot be contacted right now. 

My present discomfort was exacerbated by a concert I recently went to that involved quartets by Webern, Glass and Bartok. My troubles began when the Glass quartet was performed without a break. I thought that this was the longest first movement I had ever heard. The other two composers grated my nerves. This would have not happened some months ago. Definitely my musical tastes are decreasing. I told my companion about this. My companion said, “You have told me this many times before.” My companion then said, “I have a friend who has dementia who keeps repeating himself.”

I know that I will not ever attend another concert by the avant garde group and perhaps I will let go of my companion friend.

In my Kitsilano home I have a complete and very good sound system with amplifier, tuner, tape deck, dvd player, a linear tracking turntable and two JBL studio monitors. Yet I never listen to music alone. I may play music when visitors come and ask for music. I find that the music I like is always in my head. As my musical tastes become smaller I can state that I never ever want to listen to Bach’s Double Violin Concerto, or any music from the 19^th century. In my head is Piazzolla’s music and that of an Argentine pianist and composer called Ariel Ramírez. Few know that the Argentines have music that is called zamba which has the same rhythm as that of the Brazilian samba. But it is somehow entirely different and Ramírez has composed lots of it.

I wish my Rosemary were around so I could consult with her this musical taste anomaly of mine. I have tried with some friends but they keep recommending I listen to this or that without acknowledging what is wrong with me.

And so I no longer go to the theatre, dance or many concerts.

Is this something that happens to 83 year old men? What would Rosemary say?

The photograph illustrating this blog is of my Russian friend Boris who works at BeauPhoto. He does not have a piano or access to one. When he visits me he plays, without interruption music that he has composed. I wish he would visit me more. Would my spark for music light light up again?

For anybody interested in the blurred effect of my portrait of Boris at my 120 year old Chickering baby grand, UI used a Fuji X-E1 camera equipped with a lens called a LensBaby. 

Top - Helleborus 'Honeymoon Blue' & Helleborus x niger 'Honeyhill Joy' 22 February 2026

The date of the scan here is today when I wrote this blog. I am filling holes as I have been doing a lot of bed rotting with Niño and Niña. I have been staring at the ceiling and doing a lot of thinking.  As Captain Beefheart said in his Ashtray Hearts - 'He's had too much to think."

Captain Beefheart - Too Much to Think

It is impossible for me to look at the now flowering hellebores without thinking that if Rosemary were alive she would look at them and smile. My Rosemary kept her emotions mostly to herself. Even though she must have laughed I don’t have a memory of her doing it.

Because of the cold rainy weather these weeks I keep postponing the inevitable which is to clean up my garden and prune my roses. The pots with my hostas have dead leaves that I have to remove. On a string of sunny days this can be a pleasant task. I do use a short ladder and my daughter Hilary says she wants to be present when I am on it. I try to be careful and I like to be independent but I just might take up her offer.

One of the spring activities that Rosemary and I indulged in was to go to nurseries to see what new plants were being offered. Now I am more likely to keep just what  have and when something dies to just remove the plant. My garden is what I call a shoulder to shoulder garden where you do not see dirt. My hostas grow to be big so that dirt underneath does not show.

Just like I don’t plant to go to the American Hosta Society Convention this year (partly  because I want to avoid going to the US ) I do believe that I might even stop paying my dues and not be a member of the society.

Is increasing withdrawal an indication of my age? I believe it is.

 Julian Barnes - Death and the Lemon Table

The Julian Barnes book Departures(s) is definitely not a novel even though it is called that. I am reading it slowly as there is so much information that for me is startling which at the same time I can understand.

Barnes mentions something he calls IAM which stands for Involuntary Autobiographical Memory. Some people have an extreme version of this and become stifled in their life to continue on.

While I do not remember (even if I try) what it was like when I was born I remember st stuff like being 7 or 8 and my mother was combing me. She said, “This hair over your forehead makes you look like Hitler.” I believe I asked him who he was but I do not remember her answer.

This IAM and an extreme version called HSAM or highly superior autobiographical memory, keeps appearing in my thoughts all the time. There is one in particular that I have written about before. I was six and I went into a cabinet to help myself with more candy corn that my mother had hidden there. When I opened the cabinet there was a mirror. I stared into it and thought, “This is me.” Since then it has become almost impossible for me to look into a mirror and not be back to when I was six. I think immediately of Borges who said that every first time is followed by that first time, over and over. And famously he asked, “Is this the last time this mirror will reflect my face?”

I had two good friends from my four years at the Catholic boarding school, St.Edward’s High School, in the late 50s. One of them, Howard Houston taught my older granddaughter when she was 8 to fish. The other friend, Lee Lytton my wife and two granddaughters met in his birthplace in Sarita, Texas. He was most gracious and invited us to a nice restaurant by a river.

Why are these two friends in my thoughts? These thoughts are definitely not voluntary.

I will have to keep on with the Barnes book to see if he has more revelations on the subject.

When I look at a book in a bookstore I like to read the first paragraph (and sometimes the last). I wrote about that here. In Departure(s) Barnes has this first paragraph – The other day I discovered and alarming possibility. No, worse: an alarming fact.

First Paragraphs and Autobiographical Novels 

But even more startling is that on the previous page he has the title for the first chapter – The Great I Am.

I believe that this book is the best book to read if you are reaching that age when oblivion is statistically an immediate possibility.

The photograph of Rosemary illustrating this blog I took in 1969 a year after we had been married in Mexico City. It is in front of my bed on the opposite wall where she stares at me and I stare back. I was there in 1969 with my camera in hand. I cannot stop thinking that. It is my AIM working and like Borges would have said, I look at her portrait which I just took.