My entry into serious gardening began when we moved to a mostly shady but big garden in Kerrisdale in Vancouver in 1986. Most botanical publications mentioned a plant called hosta. By the time we left that garden in 2015 to our present location in Kitsilano I had amassed some 600 plus of the plant. My discerning eye (because I like hostas) could and can note the difference between one variegated wonder and another. 

But if you look closely during the growing season of this shade tolerant (never loving) plant you might notice as I did many years ago that the unopened flowers on the tips of the scapes (hosta lingo for stalk) are quite elegant. When they open some of these flowers can be awfully fragrant as is the pure white flower of Hosta plantaginea sometimes called the August lily.

In our previous large garden on Athlone Street in Kerrisdale, Vancouver we had 85 roses. Most of them were Old Roses such as Gallicas and Albas. We also had many English Roses.

Our garden had encroaching shade from neighbouring trees. Many of our roses were languishing in too much shade. One of them the English Rose Rosa ‘A Shropshire Lad’ which was and is shade tolerant simply had too much shade. When we left our garden to move into our small Kitsilano one I left it behind. I regretted it.

Fortunately a member of the Vancouver Rose Society informed us that she wanted to get rid of some of her roses. One of them was Shropshire Lad!  I documented the bringing of the very large rose from North Vancouver to our laneway garden.

In July 2006 I went to see a production of Angels in America. The actors were Sarah Rodgers, Marco Soriano, Denis Simpson and Alan Morgan. I had the delightful pleasure of having photographed at one time or another all four. Now today June 14 2017 that striking show has hit home in a different way.

Angels in America 
Angels in America II 
Are Melted into Thin Air

Denis Simpson is dead, Sarah Rodgers is a renowned theatrical director, Alan Morgan is sort of retired and Marco Soriano (his birthday today) teaches others his profession.

As my Rosemary’s cat Casi-Casi slept next to me I gave all the above some thought. In my years in Vancouver I have gone to many concerts, plays, art exhibitions and dance. None if any have been recorded on hard copy. They remain in my memory that they indeed happened. In some cases my blogs (since January 2006) are my personal records and remind me that all those events still live within me.

Many of my slides, negatives and prints have made it in the past onto newspapers and magazines. As memory of these magazines and publications fade (as well as the fading hard copies) I myself fade into oblivion as we all must even if we purchase a park bench with our name on it.

But at the very least the presence of these negatives and slide in my files are tactile examples of aspects of my life.

What to those living three actors of that long ago Angels in America have? What of those talented dancers by the likes of Cory Caulfield, Emily Molnar, Evelyn Hart, Wen Wai Wang, Sandrine Cassini, Crystal Pite and many others have except faded movements in the memories of those who were witnesses.

This fleeting wonder is but a preparation for our eventual death. But we must keep the memories alive for as long as we can. We owe it to them.

Earl & Ruth Brooks, Rosemary & Alex Circa 1970 Arboledas, Estado de México

My relationship with my mother was a conundrum of mislaid emotion. She constantly told me that love was not saying but doing. Based on that my mother did everything she could to satisfy all my rational and irrational needs. And she sacrificed a life to give me a good education.

My mother and my young wife got along well, probably because both were constantly doing something, one for her son, the other for her husband.

Both were reticent about showering me with caresses and kisses. Only once do I remember my mother saying, “Rosemary adores you. Do your best to respect that.”

Filomena de Irureta Goyena Hayward, Rosemary & Alexandra, Veracruz, Mexico circa 1969

Forty nine years later I cannot live one day without needing the presence of my Rosemary. Today I dropped her off at the University of British Columbia Hospital for her scheduled operation to replace her left knee at what would have been 12:45. It is mid-afternoon here in our Kitsilano home and I feel completely lost.

It seems that the dishwasher (only Rosemary uses it) is not loading up with water. This could be a cycle problem but I have no way of checking the manual as only Rosemary would know where it is.

Our lovely queen-sized bed looks larger than usual. Rosemary’s Casi-Casi is on it and I don’t have to share with him that we both miss our mistress.

Rosemary & Ale, Varacruz 1969

Perhaps to while the emptiness of the afternoon, I have scanned a few circa 1970 negatives featuring Rosemary, my mother and my in-laws. In one you will note that Rosemary has the most beautiful legs you could possibly gaze on any woman.

Rosemary will be back Thursday afternoon and she has vowed that she will not wear pants to hide whatever scar she may have. I approve of this as her legs, scar or not, are supremely beautiful legs. I will be her nursemaid for a while. Perhaps I can apply my mother’s dictum that love is not saying but doing.

In the mid to late 50s at St. Edward’s High School, a Catholic boarding school in Austin, Texas we used to waste time in our religion class (really a class of theology) by asking what we thought were dumb questions. I remember one day that we asked Brother Edwin Reggio, C.S.C. if we had free will and if he could explain it.

He told us that God was at the top of a mountain looking down on a hairpin curve. He could see two cars coming from opposite directions and He knew they would collide. He left it at that. It took us a while for us to catch on the depth of Brother Edwin’s explanation.

These days I cannot as yet be sure if we humans have free will but I do believe that inanimate objects may have some version of it. It is called resistentialism. This word is about objects that we mistreat or throw around. They (consider that the plural of it is they) don’t like it and they get back on us by not working or by twisting themselves as all my photographic chords routinely do. In a story by Ray Bradbury about a man who mistreats his electric devices, one morning he is attacked by his electric razor. I can just look at some of my equipment and it will stop working then and there. So we have resistentialism and the proof, perhaps, of individual volition in stuff we believe has no soul.

But with the increasing encroachment of so called “intelligent” apparatus that is supposed to make our life easier how do you explain that today my Galaxy 6 would not make phone calls. The device informed that there was no network.

In the afternoon while walking to Canadian Tire I spied a Telus shop. I went in and asked a nice young man to fix my phone. He told me that when in doubt the first thing to do is to turn the phone off and turn it on again. That worked. He then told me, “Your phone app was frozen.” There was no forthcoming additional explanation given. I would have asked (but didn’t),”Why did the phone app freeze?”

Once I got into my car (it is a 2017 Cruze that is a computer on four wheels) I was informed (not verbally as I have shut her off) that my phone was not connected and that I had to pair (a new word in my vocabulary since January 2017) the phone to the car. I tried and tried with no results. Why would my phone suddenly not be paired? Then I thought (this had happened before randomly a few weeks ago) about it and went to my phone settings to Bluetooth. The Bluetooth sign was in off. Why was it in off? Who put it in off? I turned it on and my phone was now paired.

I believe that our so-called AI devices have free will. It is a free will that thwarts humans.