bufanda

Quizá del fr. ant. bouffante.

1. f. Prenda larga y estrecha, por lo común de lana o seda, con que se envuelve y abriga el cuello y la boca.

Two things came to my mind about 20 minutes before I sat down in my oficina to write this. I was thinking on my bed with Niño and Niña asleep on my side. One is that because I have so much spare time to think I sometimes remember Captain Beefheart who in his Ashtray Hearts lyric he has this : Somebody’s had too much to think.

Two:  Jorge Luís Borges famously wrote that in order to remember you have to first forget.

I had just returned from my daily walk with Niño around the block. I dress warmly but most important I wear a lovely and soft cashmere scarf that Rosemary gave me not too long ago.

Thinking about the scarf, suddenly in my memory, there was the word bufanda which is Spanish for scarf. I may not have used, or thought of that word, for many years. Yet there it was popping in my mind. How does that happen? I have no idea but the word made me think that I would go down to my office to write.

Rosemary had a penchant for scarves. Hers and mine are inside a metal hoop in our entrance closet. Every time I see them I grieve as I can remember which ones she wore when and where.

In this photograph which I took a few blocks from our house in Arboledas, Estado de México perhaps in 1973 with a young Alexandra touching the water in the pool designed by noted Mexican architect Luís Barragán in what was then called Los Bebederos, Rosemary is wearing a scarf. Alas I cannot remember it except that since our youngest daughter has that dress she might also have the scarf.

Meanwhile I will glory in accepting the I keep remembering what I forget in Borgesian style.