Hydrangea quercifolia 'Snowflake' & Rosa 'A Shropshire Lad' 9 October 2026

Rosa sericea subsp. omeiensis f. pteracantha - 9 October 2026

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.

Garden plants have a habit in my garden to surprise me. I had the same pleasant experience in finding stuff about my Rosemary long after we had been married. Nine years ago we went to New York City to see a Michelangelo exhibit at the Met. We arrived at opening time at 10. We left at closing time as Rosemary wanted to see the David Hockney exhibit, one by Renoir and when I asked her if she was interested in mediaeval armour she went crazy using her iPhone on horse armour. How was I to know that she was interested in art? Perhaps because she allowed me to spend money on buying cameras and framing my photographs for shows I should have suspected.

There are two scans here that reaveal how plants always seem to have one over me.

The hydrangea (lovely in Spanish – hortensia) has nice fall colour. That is to be expected. But my A Shropshire Lad rose does not seem to understand that winter is almost upon us. Can pink be an autumn colour?

More surprisingly is this little white rose that has a habit of being the first in my garden on May 1. It is now in bloom?

Emily Dickinson is nicely out of town on this one!

Vancouver 8 October 2026

While in Mexico City until 1962 my mother and I used to watch a fave TV program called El Estudio de Pedro Vargas. He was singer with a unique voice. As the program (sponsored by Raleigh Cigarettes and Batey Rhum) was about to finish Vargas would give his trademark goodbye – muy agradecido, muy agradecido, muy agradecido. It translates as – very grateful, very grateful, very grateful.

Pedro Vargas - Mujer by Agustín Lara

Because yesterday and today October 8 have been sunny I went on my hour-long bike ride and took my usual photograph at the foot of Musqueam View Street and Point Grey Road. Both days showed lots of fog. With my Fuji X-E3 I took a wide (the camera takes and less wide one if I opt for it) panoramic. Biking home I thought of Pedro Vargas and associated at my daily thanks in thought (and sometimes I utter it ) to my Rosemary who took us away from Mexico City in 1975 and I soon was a good photographer making good money.

Our daughters received a good education and learned French and my youngest daughter Hilary had two daughters (22 and 29) who are lights in my life if and when I see them!

Because of her intelligent handling of our funds I do not have to worry about finances. I live in a comfortable home in Kitsilano with a little garden that we both started. When in it I remember her and I am thankful to her. Three times? 

Verbena bonariensis - 7 October 2026

I am not sure it is a seasonal problem. In this last month I have not written quite a few blogs and I tell myself that I will write them on the next day.

Perhaps my situation is one of finding it ever more difficult to live in my isolation where I miss the presence of my Rosemary who was always there for 52 years. I cannot tell people of this problem, and sometimes I think my daughters do not understand. The reaction to my telling of my melancholy is what I call a thought stopper. I wrote about that here.

A Thought Stopper

I feel guilty about having my blog holes so I am trying to fill in the gaps. One easy way is to scan a plant from the garden. Invariably, since our garden was joint one, it is easy to write something as I will connect it with Rosemary.

Today (I will not reveal the date so I can plunk this blog in the space of the missing ones) I cut this plant which is originally from Argentina. It is hardy in Vancouver and Rosemary first made me aware of it. It seeds itself and comes back every year. I somehow think that part of Rosemary is present in these as she first put them into the ground of my back lane garden.

Because I was never too swift it took me years to finally figure out (this happened when I took Argentine nostalgia photographs with Juan Manuel Sánchez at the end of the 90s) that to have a nostalgia for a place you had to be somewhere else.

Now I have suddenly come to understand that this verbena is a double nostalgia. It is my nostalgia for my country and my nostalgia for the absent presence of my Rosemary.

The closest I could ever get to that feeling when she was alive, would happen when she would visit her mother in Ottawa or our eldest daughter in Lillooet. In one occasion I was very depressed as it was my birthday and Rosemary was visiting Alexandra in Lillooet. The doorbell rang and there was my friend Leslie Dala. It was August 31, 2020. He told me he wanted me to take him to my piano room. He then played all of Bach’s Goldberg Variations.

Rosemary and fading hosta leaves - 4 October 2026

 

The word fade has a beautiful equivalent in Spanish – desvanecer. It derives from the Latin evanescĕre.

Because of my age (84) I have some memory problems and I have to use tricks especially for remembering names. It was recently that I found out that it was Dorothy Parker who coined the expression – “What fresh hell is this?” To remember her name I think of a Vancouver friend Dorothy Barkely and then I connect with a Parker Pen.

By my Epson printer I have these two hosta leaves in which I placed a b+w inkjet transparency and then between two pieces of glass I exposed them to three hours of hot afternoon sun. The resulting image was made by chlorophyll interacting with the sunlight’s ultraviolet light. I call it a chlorophyllograph which makes me a chlorophyllographer!

My scan which shows the fading images and an inkjet transparency of a portrait that I took of Rosemary in 1969 represents a kind of fading. That portrait, framed is in front of the wall opposite to my bed. When I am in or on my bed she stares at me and when I turn off the lights she persists.

Why is it that I remember so well what she looked like when she was young and my image of her in bed 6 minutes before she died when she asked me, “Am I dying?”; is fading? Is it because I must remember and do remember her at the peak at her beauty when I was yet to understand who she was?

I look at all my family portraits on the walls of my house and I think that when I meet my oblivion will anybody care? 

Slowly but surely legacy for me is a rapidly fading concept.

My grandmother often told me, “La ignorancia is atrevida,” [ignorance is daring] when some politician or friend had done something stupid. I apply that to myself, frequently.

I have had on my bed table a little black button in my possession now for a couple of years. I got it at an Art Bergmann concert. He had the buttons made because that was the title of one of his recent albums.

Some many years ago Vancouver Magazine rock column writer Les Wiseman and I went to New York City. One of the places Wiseman insisted on going to was the Algonquin. We sat in a little table and because when the joint became famous it was prohibition, patrons drank water so did we. Over us was a dark spot on the ceiling where the chandelier that was over the famous Algqonquin Round Table must have been.

Somehow I decided in the last few days to look up the the origin of question in Bergmann’s button. You can believe how astounded I was to find out it had been uttered by Dorothy Parker!

Because of my advanced age of 84 I have increasing problems with memory and particularly with names. I find myself using tricks to remember them. For a while I could not remember the name of a Canadian singer I had photographed. My trick was to remember Leonard Bernstein and that then pointed to Leonard Cohen.

To remember that leading woman (I would never use the word lady as only women can use it) I think of a Vancouver friend called Dorothy Barkley and then I connect to Parker Pen.

I try not to read the news these days as Parker’s question applies more than ever.

And obviously Art Bergmann is a man of culture.

There is a framed portrait of my Rosemary on the opposite wall from my bed. Rarely did I ever take portraits of my family with them smiling. I asked them to stare into my camera which was always at their eye level. The result is that Rosemary in this portrait that I took in Mexico City in 1969 stares at me. As soon as I turn off the lights in the evening she keeps staring at me.

I took this self-portrait because I had a memory that has haunted me since I was 6. The upcoming Halloween is part of it.

When I was 6 in Buenos Aires my mother worked for the American School that was right next to the Belgrano-R train station. She had friends in the American Embassy and often brought American foods that charmed me. It was on that important day (it must have been close to Halloween in the US when she showed me a package of multi-coloured candy she told me was called candy corn. She offered me a handful. They were delicious. I wanted more. She told me no and I watched her open an armoire and place the bag in it. She went to the kitchen. I immediately opened the armoire and helped myself to more candy. But there was a mirror behind one of the doors. I saw myself and I mentally told myself, “That is me.” I believe that in that moment I became who I am and to this day while I am all that much older that is still me.

Borges once wrote that every first occasion is followed by an infinite repetition of it until we die.

And so when I took the picture illustrating this blog I quickly saw myself as a little blond boy who found his way into his existence. There is another thought in my mind when I look at myself in a mirror. Borges wrote, “Is this the last time this mirror will reflect my face?”