Many years ago I read a statement, “Coincidence happens more often than not.”

Hace muchos años leí, “Las coincidencias suceden con más frecuencia que nó.”

Today Saturday my Portland visitor Curtis Daily and I went to Granville Island. There was a Latin American festival featuring a day of the dead altar and also a table with used books in Spanish.

Hoy sábado sábado fui con mi amigo de Portland, Curtis Daily, a Granville Island. Allí había un festival latinoamericano con un lindo altar dedicado al Día de los Muertos. También encontramos una mesa con libros usados en castellano.

For 10 dollars I bought a book that had a special relevance to me. I was astounded to find it. It was a book published by my Argentine poet/writer friend Rubén Derlis. It was one of his first books. He is now 87.

Pagué 10 dólares por un libro que tiene un muy especial significado. Es un librito publicado en 1963 por mi amigo poeta/escritor argentino Rubén Derlis que tiene 87 años.

Mathematically I find it extraordinary that I found his book. My connections with Derlis is that I lived in the Buenos Aires barrio of Coghlan where Derlis lives. His has written lots about it. And I have this lovely photograph of Derlis, my Rosemary, granddaughter Rebecca and his friend Ana sitting at the door of my former home on Melián 2770.

Para mí es extraordinario que encontré el libro. Derlis vive y ama su barrio de Coghlan donde yo viví de niño. En la fota allí están mi Rosemary, Rebecca mi nieta, Derlis y su amiga Ana sentados en el portón de mi casa de niño en Melián 2770.

Derlis liked to tell me that he looked very much like Stalin.

Derlis a menudo me decía que se parecía a Stalin. 

St. Edward's High School  Austin, Texas - 1958

Mac Letcher - 1960

A faded Boy—in sallow Clothes – Emily Dickinson

A faded Boy—in sallow Clothes

Who drove a lonesome Cow

To pastures of Oblivion—

A statesman’s Embryo—

The Boys that whistled are extinct—

The Cows that fed and thanked

Remanded to a Ballad’s Barn

Or Clover’s Retrospect—

What is nostalgia? It was sometime around the year 2000 that I figured out that to have nostalgia for a place you had to not be in that place. I am not too sure how my memories adjust to that.

I was born August 31 1942.

1. Lived in Buenos Aires from 1942 to 1953 – 10 years.

2. Mexico City – 1953 to 1957 – 4 years

3. Nueva Rosita, Coahuila 1958 –1 year

4. Austin, Texas – 1958 to 1962 (while also going to Nueva Rosita) – 4 years

5. Mexico City – 1962 to 1965 – 3 years

6. Buenos Aires – 1965 to 1966 – 2 years

7. Veracruz and Mexico City – 1967 to 1975 (married Rosemary in 1968) – 8 years

8. Vancouver – 1975 to 2025 – 50 years

On any given day when I read Jorge Luís Borges I feel Argentine. When I remember the Brothers of Holy Cross from my four years in Austin I feel Texan. That Rosemary and my granddaughters met my mentor Brother Edwin Reggio before he died in 2013.

When I switch from my Argentine Spanish to my Mexican Spanish (depending whom I am talking to) I feel either Argentine or Mexican. Mexico to me represents life with my mother and grandmother and with the addition of my Rosemary and the birth there of my two daughters.

With all that how can I feel Canadian? I think that I have to be in Venice and run into a Canadian woman whom I would tell, “Can I photograph you now with an umbrella so I can feel my nostalgia for Vancouver?”

Having a complex nostalgia for places I think is a bonus. Today I looked through my old negatives of which I have many and notice these two. The black and white I took with my almost new Pentacon-F SLR in 1960 when Mac Letcher (he is gone) and I had a room for four (after two years in dormitories for grade 9 and 10). We liked to torture our floor prefect Brother Cyriac, C.S.C. (we regretted this many years after he had died when in class reunions we would see his tomb in the school cemetery). One way was to make our room look like a disaster when he made his evening rounds.

The colour negative of the St. Edward’s High School main building (called The Old Main) I took in 1958 when I bought that Pentacon-F. I rather like the way the 67-year-old negative has deteriorated.

There is a beauty in being able to reinforce a nostalgia for a place and in time in one’s memory with a physical image.

Rosa 'Susan Williams-Ellis' & Dichondra argentea 'Oreja de Ratón' 23 October 2025

 

Grief is a Mouse – Emily Dickinson

Grief is a Mouse -

And chooses Wainscot in the Breast

For His shy House -

And baffles quest -

Grief is a Thief - quick startled -

Pricks His Ear - report to hear

Of that Vast Dark -

That swept His Being - back -

Grief is a Juggler - boldest at the Play -

Lest if He flinch - the eye that way

Pounce on His Bruises - One - say - or Three -

Grief is a Gourmand - spare His luxury -

Best Grief is Tongueless - before He'll tell -

Burn Him in the Public square -

His Ashes - will

Possibly - if they refuse - How then know -

Since a Rack could'nt coax a syllable - now

 Today I wrote about Rosemary’s favourite grey plants. There is one she never ever saw because it was introduced after she died. It is a little silver/gray vine that grows with my potted roses. It originates from Ecuador down to Southern Argentina. It is called Dichondra argentea and it is sometimes given the extra cultivar name ‘Oreja de Ratón’ or “mouse ear”.

 A Sweep of Grey 

She would have instantly acquired it as I did. Right now it looks charming and cute.

And English Rose Rosa ‘Susan Williams-Ellis’ I would have suspected to be a delicate rose unlikely to be the only one in bloom now. But it is. So it must be delicate but hardy, much like my Rosemary was.

Left - Crambe maritima - bottom left Senecio candicans 'Angel Wings' - Right - Artemisia stelleriana 'Boughton Silver' 23 October 2025

A slash of Blue – Emily Dickinson

A slash of Blue —

A sweep of Gray —

Some scarlet patches on the way,

Compose an Evening Sky —

A little purple — slipped between —

Some Ruby Trousers hurried on —

A Wave of Gold —

A Bank of Day —

This just makes out the Morning Sky.

What to write about on a lazy grey Thursday afternoon? That’s easy when I look at Rosemary’s grey plants. Somehow they manage to keep their colour in this rainy late fall. Rosemary had a real love for her grey plants. One of them Senecio candicans ‘Angel Wings’ is supposed to be a perennial. It never survives in my garden. Perhaps with some hope this year will be the exception. The second grey plant Artemisia stelleriana ‘Broughton Silver’, grows nicely in my potted roses. But the nicest of Rosemary’s grey plants is Crambe maritima. We had large swaths of them in our Kerrisdale garden. Here in Kitsilano it is in one lonely pot. I might just figure out another spot for this noble plant.

It is amazing for me to look at a plant and immediately remember a Rosemary smile.