Camellia sasanqua 'Yuletide' 5 January 2023

A Yuletide Camellia

Today is January 5 2023 and I have yet to start writing blogs with regularity. It is not only because of the weather and the holidays. It has something to do with this melancholy and grief that I feel in missing my Rosemary. The two cats stare at me and beckon me to go up to the bedroom to lie with them. I cannot resist Niño’s stare. It is somewhat placid but Niña stares at me in a sorry gloom and I feel sorry for the pair. So I don’t write.

I was alone for Christmas Eve and also for New Year’s Eve. In my past I don’t remember ever having a Christmas Eve alone. For a few New Year’s Eves I was alone with Rosemary. I would call this alone/together. That is not at all in being just alone.

In our first year of being married back in 1968 I would have defined our situation as together/alone. We did not need anybody to share our being together.

In 2019 a year before Rosemary died she was keen on Camellia sasanqua ‘Yuletide’. This was a camellia that bloomed (if you were lucky) a couple of days before Christmas with a bright red flowers.

We purchased one at the GardenWorks in North Vancouver.

In 2022 I told my daughter Hilary to take care of my potted camellia as I had no room for it.  She forgot to water it and it died. I was quite upset. Somehow I had to find one in memory of Rosemary. I found two in one gallon pots at Mandeville GardenWorks.

While it did not bloom until the 27^th of December I have been looking at the two first flowers every day and postponing snipping it for a scan. Today I gave up. And here it is.

Camellia sasanqua ‘Yuletide’ you are in bloom, I am alive and I miss my Rosemary.            

My side is on the side with the blue pillowcases

Yo me duermo a la orilla de una mujer: yo me duermo a la orilla de un abismo.

 I sleep on the edge of a woman; I sleep on the edge of a precipice.  Eduardo Galeano

Tonight is the end of the first day of 2023. Because I want to start afresh, I washed my sheets and pillow cases (after getting Niño and Niña to get off). Once the sheets were dried I had to make the bed.

I can think of nothing more intimate (other than having sex with my Rosemary) than making our bed. We always made it together. Seeing that smile of satisfaction while we were stretching the sheets gave me a sense of acute intimacy, as if we were going to have sex as soon as the bed was made. And of course that may have happened a few times.

Tonight I will take a complete bath and wash my hair and put on a clean nightie. I will get into our bed and think of those moments, that now almost come close, when Niño and Niña get as near as they can to me (or on me) when I turn off the light.

Because Rosemary is not here I now like to share the bed with her empty presence and I lie part of the night on her side.

In the morning I go down with the cats and feed them. I prepare my breakfast on what used to be the wicker tray we shared and I place the day’s newspapers in it with my tea, bread, juice and all of the pills that my daughter Hilary says I should take.

As I have breakfast I can almost imagine the satisfaction of those past breakfasts with Rosemary.

I might add here a little intimate detail. Rosemary was a morning person.