Good word, after seven months of “I’m moving,” I’ve moved. After 8¼ years in Washington Heights in upper Manhattan, seven of which were happily lived in an art deco building near Fort Tryon Park, I’ve moved downtown. It’s incredible. I’m still settling in. Still, of course, archiving photos. I’m just entering 2003 in the archives.

Plenty to write about re: 2010, as it was a high drama move on many counts, but instead I will settle in quietly and post an old photo of my relatively huge closet (relative to that of my new place) in my first apartment circa 1992. It was a little 3-bedroom in Rochdale Village, part of the Berkeley Co-ops. Nice light, good space, not much charm. It was just behind the now defunct Cody’s Books on Telegraph (ugh), where I spent loads of time. I lived with an excellent friend I still love to visit (she moved east as well). Decided to move to New York while in that space. Obviously full of good vibes.

Another. I miss them.

Archiving on, I found a shot I’d thought I’d taken for Time Out after 9/11, but obviously it was a few weeks before, as you can see the towers standing. It’s almost the same shot as in the previous post.

I finished archiving 2000 in June, and took a break from heavy cataloging, but also had to add the photos I’d scanned myself over the years to 2000. It was highly tedious. It was not pleasant. Neither was what I had to return to—2001. It wasn’t a great year for me on any level, but ugh, it was worse for the city.

People have asked to see these images and I never really wanted to look at them or to present them in any way, but now that I’m chronologically moving through all the photos, it’s time. They are up on flickr.

Previous caution aside, I didn’t fully expect what I read or the affect it would have on me. I teared. I looked at the time. I collected my stuff and myself and I left.

A friend of mine once said, after her father died, that you can’t schedule grief. You can’t plan it, you just have to take it when it comes. This has been my experience precisely. While anger is fairly accessible to me, sadness tends to hide itself, even when I know it should be there, and feel that it is, somewhere, there. Because it is difficult for me to reach, I try to respect it when it comes.

In the elevator down, the tears started rolling. I walked out of my building and up the street, feeling bittersweet memories and the sheer sadness of an ending, and crying harder. I’ve learned in the past that silent tears often go unnoticed, and New York is mostly asleep before six in the morning, so I didn’t care too much about my public display. When I was midway down the steps to the subway, an MTA guy headed up them looked at me with concern. I recognized him as a night-shift elevator operator, and remembered saying ‘Hi’ to him when I came home the night before, just after 10. He said something. I pulled out an earbud.

“What?”

He asked, again, with kind eyes, “Are you okay? Is everything okay?”

“Yes, oh yes,” I answered, and he nodded. We kept going. The tears came a little harder, marveling at the beauty of New Yorkers. Marveling that someone who’d spent the last eight graveyard hours in an underground MTA elevator still has the capacity to be genuinely concerned about a stranger passing by.

A few nights before, I talked to a guy at in a club who claimed that Londoners are much more open and kind then New Yorkers. He complained that New Yorkers are entirely self-absorbed and unhelpful.

“Really? You think so?” I answered, amazed. I understand this might be true as far as superficial concerns go, but never have I found a New Yorker to turn on someone in real pain or need. Yes, there is a certain amount of numbing oneself to others’ pain that goes on here, to get through the daily realities of so many in such a small space. But if someone is truly out or ill or in need, someone steps up. No, not everyone, but someone. You know when it’s your turn. That’s how we work.

Last year, just after Andrea moved back to Australia, I was headed downtown on the train during rush hour to meet a friend for dinner. It was packed, and I was standing by a pole between the end seat and the doors. A particular song came on my player and all of the sudden I burst into tears. I’d kept sunglasses on, so I didn’t think it was terribly noticeable. I was silent. My eyes closed in search of privacy, pretending that anyone I could not see could not see me. Because rush hour on the train is so in-your-face, and I respect the right of New Yorkers to have as much space as possible on our confined and difficult commutes (i.e. no one needs extra drama two inches away after a long day’s work), I tried to dam the tears. Just when I thought I’d stifled them, someone tugged on my arm.

“Sit, sit, please sit,” said the man sitting in front of me.

Oh no.

Stubborn, I refused. “No. No thank you.” I shook my head, as accepting meant I acknowledged he was there. That anyone was there. That I was making a scene. His kindness toppled the dam and I cried harder, gulping for air as I tried to regain composure. The train stopped. The man got up. He looked and sounded Middle Eastern. “Sit!” he cried, as he grabbed my arm and forced me down in his seat, seemingly anguished by my pain, and then bolted from the car. The blond woman next to me turned and asked if I was okay.

“Yes, yes,” I answered, humbled by their kindness and totally unable to stop the flow of tears. I refused to make eye contact with anyone else in the crowded car, and refused to acknowledge how many might be taking me in. Finally, by 14^th Street, I pulled it together, wiped my face, and prepared to get off the train. It was done. By the time I reached the restaurant, no one suspected a thing.

A friend of mine recently said that NYC is a refugee camp. It takes in everyone who, for whatever reason, can’t or doesn’t want to be where he began (and if not him, it took in his mother or grandmother, and he knows what that means). Given the number of cultural strangers here, it’s a miracle that so little violence takes place, especially considering the behavior and antics of many space-rich middle Americans.

In our own way, we take care of each other. No, we aren’t bubbly or disingenuous. We also know how to stay out of each other’s way, which can be seen by outsiders as rudeness. But on this tiny island of millions, that, too, is an act of kindness.

So beautiful. You must go, if you are at all inclined toward “Classic Children’s Stories, With a Little Gender Bending Thrown In.” I, for one, loved the Big Bad Wolf. And, of course, Lady G, à la Biju.

Another break from Lithuania, and the archiving. I rarely shoot selfies but it’s been a big weekend. I wore my grandmother’s dress for the first time Friday night. My sister gave it to me in 2006 from Grandma’s closet (her pink bedroom with homemade dolls and her urn with the elephant Grandpa glued on top are featured in “grandpa’s house”) when they were clearing the house. The closet was still full, though she died seven years earlier in 1999. The dress isn’t quite her style, so we aren’t sure the story behind it. Judging from the hems, it’s clearly homemade, probably by her or one of her five sisters (there were nine kids in all). Not sure why I waited so long to wear it. It’s amazing.

Oran Warren and Euphemia Francis. May, 1991.

In case you’re tired of Lithuania, here’s a USA snap I love. I think this is in the lower east side (nyc), though I’m not sure. I took it ten years ago. I love those monkeys. Especially the one with the bleary eyes. That’s me, archiving all these photos. I’m on 1400 even. Keyword keyword keyword. Ahhhh!