Waving goodbye

 

Leaving and Waving, a new photo show at the Polygon Gallery, brought back memories of farewells with my own parents.

For 27 years, U.S. photographer Deanna Dikeman took photos of her parents at the end of her visits to them, starting in 1991.

There was always a moment at the end of my parents’ visits when I didn’t quite want to say goodbye –they were old after all, and what if this was the last time? Stretching things out a bit, I’d walk them to their car and stand there waving them off.

Those moments came back to me Thursday night at a Polygon Gallery show recording 27 years of just such waves. Over all those years, Deanna Dikeman snapped photos of her parents waving goodbye after her periodic visits to their home in Sioux City, Iowa.

In 1991, her parents look cheerful and strong. In 2009, there are a curious number of goodbye waves: Many visits? Some problem?  And then there is only one parent – her mother – waving farewell from the open garage. As the years go on, her mother’s face gets sadder – it’s worse and worse to let her daughter go.

In 2017, the photos are taken in a care home, her mother surrounded by the flowery brightness intended to leaven the sadness of such places. The final photo of the series is of the family home, garage closed. There’s nobody left to wave goodbye.

After my father died in March of 1995, my mother drove herself out to our place for lunch in dad's familiar car. It was when she was leaving, one person walking alone to that car when there had always been two, that I truly felt the departure I’d always dreaded. But there was my mother, bravely carrying on alone.

 I waved.

This is the last photo of Dikeman's parents waving her goodbye together. Her father died in 2009, aged 91.

Now her mom says goodbye alone.

She looks sadder as the years go along.

Finally, she says goodbye from the door of her care home, where she moved in 2017. She died the same year.

There's no one to wave farewell at the family home anymore.

The sequential photos of 27 years of visits were set out on a shelf at the Polygon Gallery. You could walk from 1991 to 2017 and see the seasons and people change.

Treats

 

When life gives you lemons, go to a West Vancouver pastry shop and order coffee and cake. 

Then tour the West Vancouver seawall, where if you're John Denniston, you'll get a photo like this. 

When John and I have had enough – of medical stuff, of being in the house too much, of the routine, of the relentless bad news on our news sites – we look at each other and say: “Cake!”

Off we go to Temper Chocolate and Pastry in Dundarave for coffee and hazelnut and chocolate cake, our first treat. Our second is a walk along the West Vancouver seawall, where the people promenade, the birds bob, and an eagle often keeps watch.

Sometimes our treats work out better than others: the bridge traffic can be horrendous, our favourite cake can be gone, the seawall can be lashed with cold rain. This Sunday, the traffic was clear, the cake was plentiful, and the seawall beautiful, with a high tide that brought the ducks within a few feet of our faces.

Here are some photos from our day of treats:

The high tide brought the ocean right up to the seawall on Sunday. Photo by John Denniston.

A row of ducks floated just feet away, cleverly keeping in single file. Photo by John Denniston.

A little drive took us to Pilot House Road in West Vancouver, where a freighter seemed to float within swimming distance. Photo by John Denniston.

Back to where we started; a closeup of that hazelnut cake.

Once a newspaper photographer...

When John spotted this man clipping a neighbour's plants, his old newspapering instincts kicked in.  Photos by John Denniston. 

 

Even though John challenged him and was obviously photographing him, the man kept clipping away.

John has been a patient patient, abiding strictly by the “no-exertion” rules laid down for his recovery from ear surgery on Saturday.

 But on Tuesday, minutes after leaving the house for one of the few breaths of fresh air he’s taken so far, there he was, in full confrontational news-photographer mode.

 Sharper-eyed than myself, he spotted a man chopping away at a neighbour’s underbrush with a pair of red secateurs. The back story is that for the past year, Dunbar residents have been flummoxed by mysterious attacks on trees, shrubs and other plantings along local sidewalks. Sometimes the foliage was growing over sidewalks, so there appeared to be a reason. But sometimes it wasn’t, and beloved trees well away from the sidewalk were inexplicably lopped.

 John’s newsman instincts kicked in in a flash. “Stop that!” he yelled, dashing toward the crime scene, cellphone camera at the ready. “You’re the guy whose been cutting people’s trees!”

 “I’m cutting these,” the white-haired man, wearing a baseball cap and a bag slung over his shoulder, said as he continued snipping away. Barely looking up, he almost posed for the series of photographs that John began taking. Then, after a heated exchange between him and John, he drifted away across the intersection.

  “I’m doing this for disabled people and seniors and strollers,” he called back. “Sidewalks are supposed to be clear.”

 We still don’t know who the man is, whether he’s responsible for the previous clipping work, or what to do about him. But we do know that a retired newspaper photographer, even an under-the-weather one, can go from zero to 120 in a couple of seconds if a good story pops up.

Of magic and cats

 

My desk mementoes include a stuffed knit cat (forefront) made by my friend Linda. My grandniece got another one, and thereby lies a tale.

Several years ago, my friend Linda was knitting little stuffed cats – three inches tall, with cunning little tails that curled up or curled down – and giving them away as gifts. Mine, which lives on my desk with other mementoes, is green, white, and blue stripes, with orange eyes and tail-tip.

One of the other recipients was my grandniece Emi, now 8, who I recently learned had a sad story concerning her cat. Apparently, she’d become extremely attached to it – her mom said it was the perfect size to carry around in her jacket and backpack, and it kept her company wherever she went. But one day the cat disappeared on the school bus and couldn’t be found.

Emi, whose world view includes the real potential of magic, thought that might be the solution. Every so often, her mom said, she’d ask whether “magical characters” might be able to find her cat.  Then with Christmas approaching, she seized on another possibility. Could Santa (who after all can fly all over the world distributing presents to every girl and boy) find the kitty and bring it back?

Well, he missed his chance at Christmas, but when Emi’s mom told me the story, I passed it on to Linda.

 “But I have cats!” she said. “I made some extra who never found homes and just tucked them away. I can give both Emi and her sister their own cats!”

The news made Emi’s day, her mom reported. Not only does she get a cat, but now she knows for sure that magical characters (who knit tiny cats) do exist.

Linda's extra cats – one tail up, one tail down – will go to Emi and her sister.

John van Gogh

 

John can't resist taking a picture of his bandaged ear after dermatological surgery on Saturday. Photo by John Denniston. 

Look familiar? Vincent van Gogh painted Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear in January 1889.

When John came home from dermatological surgery on his ear, what’s the first thing he did? Photographed himself with a bandage covering it so completely that his ear appeared to have vanished.

One hundred and thirty-four years ago, to the month, Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh produced an eerily similar portrait of himself. His 1889 bandage is bigger and clumsier, covering the side of his face from hat to chin, as well as the ear that he’d mutilated. Stories about the incident differ – it was a fit of mania, a fight with his housemate Paul Gauguin, or anxiety over financial support. He either lopped off his ear lobe only, or nearly his entire ear; and he gave the appendage to either a maid or a prostitute.

John’s story lacks the drama of a century of myth-making; the doctors were just excising some questionable tissue, and did a fine stitching job under that skin-coloured bandage.

But it’s interesting to look at the similarity of these pictures 134 years apart. Two visual artists, two damaged ears and what’s their response? Make a self-portrait.