A Tourist In My Own Land

We (my Rosemary and two daughters) moved from Mexico City to Vancouver in 1975. On contract I have worked for the CBC, Canadian Pacific Limited, Air Canada and for Vancouver Magazine. I have photographed politicians, mayors, hoods, cops, stars, directors, dancers and more.

And yet I look at the mountains (with snow or without) with the eyes of a tourist. In fact I have felt like a tourist all these years. I feel I don’t belong.

My trip to Buenos Aires this Thursday will bring a temporary relief of being with relatives and friends and all in a city that will be recognizable. There is something to be said for the routine of the unchanging.

That is not the case in Vancouver. It was only today (Wednesday) that the City of Vancouver Twitter page posted a question about did we know that there were two previous incarnations of the Cambie Street Bridge. My guess is that nobody at City Hall has the memory for the fact that (at least the second one) it was previously called the Connaught Bridge.

We live in a city with an escaping memory. As the carpet is rolled out the other end is being rolled in.

When I am in Buenos Aires I will tell everybody about the charms of the city where I now live but it will be difficult to explain my sense of detachment (alienation, even) for a city where everything works, there is a steady 110 volts at the outlets (at an unwavering 60 cycles).  It will be difficult to explain, too them to understand that the polarization the plagues my former country of birth does not exist in Vancouver...yet.

The two pictures here I took of Jo-Ann (my former routine monthly subject on a Thursday) on the roof of my studio on Granville and Robson. The Farmer Building is gone and when I walk by I feel like a carrier pigeon lost.