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| Rosemary and her cat Casi-Casi |
This blog is
6998. I am already thinking what I will write for the700th.
Because I
was in the Argentine Navy as a conscript I like to use nautical terms when I
think or talk. There is a fine one in Spanish - a la deriva which translates
most disappointingly in English as drifting. The original meaning of l a la
deriva – in Spanish is about a ship without a working rudder or with a broken
engine. In my Spanish it also has a most important meaning of a person,
institution or nation that is drifting without purpose in a confusing state of
mind.
At my soon
to be 86 I am at –la deriva. I have a sort of easy daily routine that involves
feeding my cat Niña, riding my bike, scanning my plants, taking photographs and
writing these blogs.
The Spanish
language has been bombarded by anglicismos – blog, internet, googliar,
whatsappiar,etc.
I like to
point out that we have a lovely word for blog in Spanish. It is – bitácora – which
means a ship’s log. It is a finer sounding word than the noun but also verb
blog.
I started
this blog when I had my webpage (alexwaterhousehayward.com) designed in January
2006. I have no recollection who suggested I add a blog to it. I had no idea
what a blog was. It took me a few years to figure out it was almost a – Dear Diary.
One aspect
of my blog that I did not count on, as I was ignorant, is that my blog is Blogger
and Blogger is Google. Because of my many blogs my internet presence is very
large and I get requests (good money) for use of my photographs in magazines,
newspapers, etc.
Because my
memory is fading, if I want to find out in what year I went with Rosemary to
Venice or photographed some famous (or not famous) person, I just go to my blog
search engine or Google.
While I am
rudderless with most of my creative and shared life with my Rosemary, writing
this blog somehow ameliorates my confused (Rosemary purposely pronounced that
con-few-zed) melancholy.
These three
framed photographs of my Rosemary are on my dining room credenza. At least in
one of them Rosemary has a nice smile without those sad eyes that were her
trademark.