moving psychology 255y

There were books on that bookcase. I wondered. That last picture must have been after they were packed, well into the move.

Yes, this is a scancafe scan. Nice example—some weird tear of the negative in the corner, and extremely yellow. They claim not to scan partial negatives or negs of only one image, so what on earth is this? They gave me some of my money back after the many issues, but this before I confirmed that negatives from December 1996–March 1999 are totally missing. I shot a lot of chrome in 1997, but that still means that the Pakistan work, which I’d been looking forward to seeing scanned, is gone. Lost. Gone. I know that they were there because I have the contact sheets for them in the place they should be. I’ve finally put everything back in its place, and I am 2/3rds of the way through organizing the scans. I haven’t bothered to contact them again because I had so many complaints. Perhaps that’s the situation with an order of ~6,000 images, but it’s disappointing nonetheless. I intend to write a final summary of the experience, which started last August, to finish and summarize the whole process. It wasn’t my intention to get into that now, but the image is telling.

So. Moving Psych 255y, where the issues are heartier. The more real the possibility of leaving my apartment (& NYC) becomes, the more I am able to appreciate everything. Because the walk to work every day is numbered, it’s no longer that same monotonous route. I look at people. I take snaps with my cell phone. I engage. I feel people when ordinarily the sheer weight of the city (or simply the sheer monotony of my routine) forbids me to do so. It’s breathtaking. Compounding the beauty, people open in return.

When I’m in a bad mood, when I ‘m sad, angry, depressed, or stressed the only thing that always shifts the mood is to stop and help someone else. No, I don’t always want to, but I try. It doesn’t matter what my problems are, and it doesn’t matter if the other’s are bigger or smaller. We are wired to help each other. It feels good.

The confusion and uncertainty is painful, but there is richness in it, a tapestry of color to which I otherwise blind myself. I have always felt a sureness in my bones before taking a ridiculous leap, the rightness of the whens and wheres and hows. I want that. Now.

So sit, you silly thing. It will come.

moving psychology 101

Whenever I get rid of stuff I once loved but don’t really need anymore, I take a photo. Looking at my old apartments reminds me that I can and will create another place I love, and storage doesn’t cost all that much. I’ll I’m really keeping are 3 boxes of books, 2 large boxes of photos/ negs/ chromes, photo stuff, journals, grandma’s table, and the rug underneath it (a kafkas acquired in Bukhara). Need a bookcase?

Just ran across this article on the psychology of moving in the NYT. It is, no doubt, a bourgeois diatribe that will cause my eyebrows to rise and my forehead to crinkle. Perhaps I should read it before I judge. It’s just that the NYT, one of the few pop culture institutions I plug into at all, is often written in a slightly smug tone that suggests that we, its readers, are all in on the same pseudo-liberal secret regarding how the world operates. We aren’t.

Maybe that’s why they’re broke.

Okay. I read it. Vapid. “I can’t move right now” when he has felt trapped for three years. Hmm. Almost as good as “love and light.” I’m not sure negating feeling by rephrasing is necessarily the best therapy.

Why doesn’t he sublet and live somewhere else? Co-op boards allow it.

It’s an interesting subject that wasn’t explored much at all in the article. There’s a lot to be said for what comes up during a move. Jungians have painted the psyche onto a house. Different rooms symbolize different aspects of being. Basement = subconscious. &c. There are also the factors of Home. Safety. Risk. Community. Change. Loss. I always lose something beloved in a move. At any rate, I’m grumpy. I need to eat something.

Good things to come. Stop resisting.

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bookcase 2000

This was my bookcase in Astoria, early 2000, shortly before I packed up and moved to Uzbekistan. View it larger for all the little details, if you’re given to that sort of thing. Less clutter in my place now. Less stuff in general—fewer spectacles, cameras, letters, paper, etc. Okay, maybe the same number of cameras. But more things I love.

Oh, moving. Illness and grief aside, what’s harder? I’m packing up again for the first time in seven years, packing up the first place that has ever been a real home. I don’t own much stuff, considering, but what I do own, I love. Packing away photos, books, and negs to sit, homeless, in boxes does not feel nice at all. Oh how I resist change, even when much needed. Slowly, but surely.

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funky car. snow.

Sorry for the weather update, but whoa. It’s snowing again.

snow melting on fence

Last from the series: Snowstorm Cell Snaps

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bug in snow

I realized yesterday, with a start, while trying overexpose for snow, what I’d always thought was a little exposure meter on my beloved little old grainy cell phone camera is actually an indication for the zoom lens. A zoom lens? Who knew?

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yes, snow

new york snow

From the series: Snowstorm Cell Snaps

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snowy branches

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snowy windshield wipers

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