Saturday, December 04, 2021

 

23 March 2021

How does it feel, how does it feel? 

To be without a home

Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone

 

How does it feel, how does it feel?

To be on your own, with no direction home

A complete unknown, like a rolling stone

 

How does it feel, how does it feel?

To have on your own, with no direction home

Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone

 

How does it feel, ah how does it feel?

To be on your own, with no direction home

Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone

From Bob Dylan’s lyrics to Like a  Rolling Ston e

 

In the middle of last night for reasons that escape me and particularly as my memory for lyrics is not good this went through my thought process:

To be on your own, with no direction home

For me this means that right now I am floating about on the sea on a boat with no rudder. I don’t know where I am or where I am going.

My two daughters want to make my leaving this world a seamless one. I am instructed to deal with my life insurance policy (my Rosemary would have been the one to inherit $75,000). Because of the amount of stuff in my little Kitsilano duplex I have told my daughters that when I die the house should be left as is for a while. It could be a pied-à-terre for either of my granddaughters or if my Eldest, Alexandra may want to leave Lillooet.

I am busy storing photo files from my computer into external drives. It is difficult to throw away years of birthday cake negatives. 

It doesn’t take too much for me to realize that with no plan to get a job, to get a phone call offering me one or anything else, I am simply living  that Dylan tune Like a Rolling Stone. I am losing my desire to go to dance, music and theatre performances. So many of them I shared with Rosemary.

Yes I am going for 10 days to Buenos Aires, yes I will be driving alone to New Dublin, Ontario in March (where Rosemary was raised) and yes I will be going to Minneapolis in June to present Beautiful Hosta Flowers & their Companions to the American Hosta Society Convention there. But these are simply distractions that do not hide that I am really waiting for my terminal date with life.

Recently I wrote to a favourite 24 year old niece in Buenos Aires: 

Sabrás que Piazzolla escribío una hermosa composición llamada Oblivion. Le puso ese nombre en inglés porque sabía que la palabra no tiene traducción exacta al castellano. Olvido no es oblivion. Y otro sinónimo en inglés, muy Sartre, es nothingness.

Cuando estaba a punto de morir Rosemary nos preguntó,"Am I dying?" No tengo memoria si contestamos.

¿A qué estado durante el sufrimiento pierde uno las ganas de vivir? Existe un protocolo que nos impide preguntarle a la persona si en efecto quiere morir. Pienso mucho (pero no tengo en este momento las ganas de suicidarme) que si me muero ya no pensaré la falta de la presencia de mi Rosemary. Ella y yo sabíamos que no nos veríamos más.

Cada día, durante las complicaciones de este siglo, la idea de un oblivion de Piazzolla se me hace más de mi agrado.

And in English that is:

You might know that Piazzolla wrote a lovely composition called Oblivion. He gave it that name in English because there is no accurate one-word translation to Spanish. To forget, olvido,  does not do it and that other synonym nothingness does not exist in Spanish either.

When Rosemary was about to die she asked us, “Am I dying?” I have no memory if we (two daughters and older granddaughter Rebecca) answered her.

I wonder at what point in one’s suffering does one lose one’s will to live? There seems to be a protocol which prevents us from asking a person if they want to die. I think a lot about this (but I have no present plans for suicide) and that if I die I will no longer think about the absent presence of my Rosemary. She and I believed we would never see each other again.

Each day with the complexity of this century the idea of a Piazzolla oblivion becomes much more to my liking. 

Piazzolla plays Oblivion

Friday, December 03, 2021

 

Rosa 'Olivier Roellinger' 3 December 2021

 Today is December 3, 2021 and I know that as December 9 approaches I will become morose as that was the day that my Rosemary died. But there will be one factor that will distract me positively. I will be visited by my Portland friend Curtis Daily from the 8^th until the 13th. We will chat and drink a fine Catena Malbec. But it will be impossible for me not to think of the fact that he knew Rosemary and that Rosemary, who most of the times was withdrawn in the presence of people, felt very comfortable in his presence. I wrote about living and dead memories here.

It was sunny enough today that I took Niño for his afternoon walk. Perhaps because of the cold he did not linger and was right behind me. Upon our return I checked on the status of Rosa ‘Olivier Roellinger’. This rose is special and I wrote about it here in Spanish. It was one of three roses that arrived this year after Rosemary had died. They were a gift from her.

Looking at this rose which might have opened, or not, in a few days I decided to cut it and scan it.

It would seem that the gifts from Rosemary keep on coming and seeing its bright yellow colour somehow felt just right. 

Rosa 'William Shakespeare 2000' 3 December 2021

 

The second scan of the English Rose, Rosa ‘William Shakespeare 2000’ was another favourite of Rosemary’s. Somehow I forgot to check its status. It had opened and today I found it on the deck floor. Even in that state I can see a beauty that is unique.

 

 

Thursday, December 02, 2021

A Rosemary list

 

When I leave my present state of life I will leave lots of stuff behind but very little that is personal like handwritten notes. It was at least 25 years ago that my handwriting began to deteriorate so that I could no longer sign my name legibly. I believe the only personal legacy will be my blog.

But Rosemary has left lots of handwritten notes including diaries I had not suspected she was writing. I even found a diary that she wrote in Mexico that finishes June 1967. I believe she may have returned to Canada and then came back to teach at the school where I met her in late 1967.

My Rosemary was a methodical and orderly woman who kept a record of everything. After she died when silverfish were taking over the house my daughters and I went through her newspaper clippings. We found boarding passes to all the airplanes we ever boarded, foreign restaurant bills and menus. But what really saddened me is this list of all the cats we had. She puts the approximate date when the cat came into our life and then in some of them she dates their death. Of my female Plata the 14 by her name suggests that was her age. She died a few weeks before we moved to Kitsilano. And Casi died while here. It was about four years ago that we brought Niño and Niña to the house. I do not know why Rosemary did not finish her list.

 

Rosemary kept many notebooks and in them she had her famous lists of things she had to do. Some of her most interesting (to me) lists were the ones of plants for the garden. She would write the complete botanical name. The list here is all about gardening. There is  citation 17, Athlone stones. She liked to go back to our old house (I never had the heart to do return). The stones may have been little ones that she would put into buckets for our daughter Alexandra who lives in Lillooet.

Another citation on the right 8 is about Christmas lights. She was keen on this and would always make sure I would buy the tree. Part of our delightful retual was to bring down our ornaments  in storage. Then we would pour over catalogues and decide on what gifts we would buy for our family. Once we had those gifts Rosemary was an expert gift wrapper.

Because of this Christmas routine (a lovely one it was) I do not have the desire to be in Vancouver this Christmas. Buenos Aires with a 38 degree Celsius Christmas Eve will perhaps distract me from what I have lost, lost on December 9 and the knowledge that Christmas will never be the same again.

I am now remembering and realizing how important those lists are when one has to multi-task. Rosemary handled all our bills, dealt with helping the grandchildren in as many ways as she could, planned our garden from one season to the next and planned our finances so that now I can live free of debt and with no worries.

Because I am going to Argentina soon I have begun a list! It is in a little notebook. I am particularly inspired because I was intimate with the person who inspired me.

I wonder If I will circle or cross out stuff in my lists once they are done?

Is it possible that after 52 years of being married to Rosemary that I will discover more personal (and wonderful) thoughts that were behind that face that seemed to be impervious to my attempts to enter? 

Wednesday, December 01, 2021

 

These days of living isolated in a pandemic make the days seem like today was yesterday. This is far different with our before-lunch school period at St. Edward’s High School in 1960. Our teacher was Brother Cyriac who did not know how to deal with an undisciplined class. We were so cruel that years later, in our 50^th anniversary of our graduation in 1961 held in 2011, my buddy, Buddy (Lee) Lytton andI made sure we went to the nearby on campus Assumption Cemetery to pay our respects and to apologize for our cruelty at his tomb.

Brother Cyriac had been our floor prefect when in our 11^th grade we were bunked four to a room. One day we put the two bunk beds one on top of each other (the Old Main had high ceilings). When Brother Cyriac entered our room he went crazy. On other days we dyed our hair blue or green. Such was our behaviour that he left the school probably to have a nervous breakdown.

But those before-lunch classes with him seemed to go forever. Behind him the big clock seemed to not move. I began to understand what hell was all about. We would laugh at him every time he used his special expression, "Stop all this hulaballoo." We had these tins that when turned over would make the sound of a cow or a cat. This drove him up the wall.

Now I wish I could make the clock stop and I look at this photograph of Brother Cyriac and again I feel so sorry in how I treated him. Perhaps by doing so I might spend a little less time in hell.