Top - Arisaema tortuosum var. helleborifolium - Astrantia major subs. involucrata 'Shaggy' & Hosta 'First Frost' 26 November 2024

On this cold and almost rainy day I smiled (a tad) when I saw Rosemary’s Astrantia major subsp. Involucratá ‘Shaggy with one solitary bloom. And then I noticed the Arisaema (called a Jack in the Pulpit) with its lovely fruit that is usually not seen as it is hidden by the leaves. To complete my scan I picked a leaf of Hosta ‘First Frost’ whose name is appropriate for the season that is about to prevail.

The stubbornness off Rosemary’s Astrantia solidified this memory that I have of Rosemary who always seemed to know what we wanted before I did.

As the cold increases my bed is almost warm with the company of Niño and Niña. I talk to them about Rosemary with no response from them. I believe that they are being diplomatic.

In Buenos Aires in 1952, when I was 10 years old, I fell in love for the first time. It was in my 5^th grade class and our teacher was Mrs. Zimmerman. We read excerpts of Great Expectations. I soon came to understand that I felt something I had never felt before. I was in love with the remote Estella. I, indeed, to this day, can state that she was my first love.

While I rejected Miss Havisham for being unresponsive to her ward’s coldness to Pipp I was attracted to her cold non-involvement. This might have been because I was a nerd before the term existed, and I was afraid to converse with the women in my class. I was their Pip.

It was in 1967 that I met Rosemary, who was not in the least like Estella. She was warm but at the same time she reflected a cool  withdrawn remoteness that reminded me of Miss Havisham.

In my 52 years of marriage I saw in her a combination of Estella and Miss Havisham. Unlike Estella at the end of Great Expectations, it took Rosemary not more than a couple of days to fall under the spell of this Argentine nerd.

This portrait of Yugoslavian friend Nena Kazulin, I shot with the idea of the photograph representing Miss Havisham. It has always been, in its frame, on our living room wall.

Rosemary never did mind as she understood what Miss Havisham, Estella and she represented in my life.