A Borgesian First Time

Rosemary’s portrait stares at me from my place in bed. When I turn off the lights I can imagine her gaze still there.

When we went to get Niño and Niña 7 years ago at the SPCA, Niña became her cat. Niña ignored me or ran away. Now with Rosemary dead five years Niña is constantly on me. She has transferred from Rosemary to me.

The presence of my two cats helps me keep sane. That presence, gives me a purpose in a life that has lost most of it. I believe that I will be more useful to my small family when I am dead. But it is Niño, who has lymphatic cancer of the intestines, and when he stares at me, I know what he is thinking. “Alex don’t die before we do. Who would take care of us if you did?”

While Niño communicates without talking, that does not stop me from talking to both cats. This I do all the time, particularly when I return home from shopping at Safeway.

I live alone but I talk a lot. In the car, without thinking, I find myself saying out loud, “Rosemary, the quiero,” or I simply repeat her name especially in Spanish, “Rosamaría.”

With my two cats next to me on the bed and with Rosemary in her framed portrait on the wall I feel that we are four in the room.

Magically, as I stare at her and she stares at me back I am back 57 years with my Asahi Pentax S-3 and Kodak Tri-X, taking her portrait. Why did she have that sad look? Did she know or even think then that one day we would not be together?

20 January 2026

Being a Jorge Luís Borges fan and a lover of the only-in-English term Borgesian I constantly experience what Borges often said that every first time is followed by repeated first times.

In my bedroom until today I had 8 framed pictures on the wall that featured my daughters and granddaughters. There were none of Rosemary. In the morning I went to pick up a framed photograph of Rosemary at Magnum Frames on Main and Marine Drive.

I put it on the wall. It is opposite me when I am on my bed. Rosemary stares at me with those sad eyes of hers. I took the photograph in the beginning of 1969. This means that the portrait is from 57 years ago. The print in the frame is not a darkroom print or an inkjet b+w print. It is an inkjet transparency mounted on silver carboard. It resembles a Daguerreotype.

She stares at me, and. I stare back. It seems like she is posing for me in our Calle Herodoto home in Mexico City. Borges was right. She is in my room and the eye contact is startling. It saddens me. But I would rather be sad if that means that she is posing for me for that Borgesian first time.

Again. 

Mr.Watson, come here I want to see you
 

"We read not only because we cannot know enough people, but because friendship is so vulnerable, so likely to diminish or disappear, overcome by space,time, imperfect sympathies, and all the sorrows of familial and passional life." Harold Bloom - How To Read and Why (2000)

 While I am no great writer I do write. I consider myself to be a cronista (chronicler) spying on people in Facebook and in TwitterX. I don’t ever comment and should I have to go to the US the authorities would find nothing offensive in my phone. I just want to recognize the changing trends.

In this chronicling I have seen how the world has become emojified (my coining), texted, and our city and many other cities are losing small shops and restaurants and are becoming homedepoed (my coinage) and couriered (my coinage).

I have written before a blog (in above link) on the mounting list of excuses I am given by people when I call them on the phone.

There is something new that I have noticed in last year. I have a first cousin in Buenos Aires. I call him on Messenger or WhatsApp. He is friendly and we chat about our life as little kids together. But he never calls me back.

I have a good friend in Mexico whom I met in 1962. He both knew my mother, my grandmother and Rosemary. On October 1 I called him. “Alex I am in Costco.” He hung up. He never did call back. I did a month later and he was pleasant.

Why is this happening? I believe that both my friend and cousin do not live alone. They have someone with them all the time. They do not experience or have any idea of what it is to live in a house of silence and that the phone never rings.

Another friend might call me and say, “Alex, you called?” What stops these people from calling me to find out how I am doing as this is why I call them?

I often look at myself in the mirror and I ask myself, "What is wrong with you?" 

This chronicler at age 83 feels much like his now gone friend Abraham Rogatnick, who three months before he died said, “I am not long for this world and I am glad.”

Niña - 17 January 2026

 

I remember going up the stairs in my Kits house some years ago and I heard Rosemary talking. When I entered our bedroom she was the only one there. She knew and immediately told me, “I was talking to Niña.” There has been only one change beyond the death of my Rosemary and that is that I also talk to the cats. There is one difference as I mostly communicate with them in Spanish.

There is a lot of Spanish cutesy talking. Niño becomes Niñomuchi and Niña is Niñamuchi. Or I might ask ¿Cómo están los gatos de Mamuchi (Rosemary)?”

My eldest daughter lives in Lillooet so I don’t see much of her. My youngest, Hilary is having a marriage not working all that well so I don’t hear much from her. I live mostly in the silence of my solitude accompanied by my two orange and white cats. They are cuddly and always there.

When Rosemary and I adopted them from the SPCA some7 years ago (they were middle aged) Niña became her cat. In the last few years she has now adopted me and she is with me all the time and insists on getting on top of my chest.

Her presence, her loyalty, reminds me of an event that happened the day Rosemary died on 9 December 2020.

The family was in the living room waiting for the funeral company to arrive to take Rosemary’s dead body away. I had a thought. “I am a photographer and you have to take this photograph.” I went up and there was Rosemary dead on her bed with Niño sleeping on her chest. I took the photograph. This was one of the most peaceful scenes I have ever encountered.

I believe this has to be the most important photograph I will ever take or have taken. I will not show it to my daughters. What was important was the action of taking it and being a photographer beyond being human.

When I look at Niña I know she must not remember. I do. I will treasure her company until one of us goes.