photo: ©Graeme Mitchell, 2007

All psychologies, all minds, all beings of this city are in sync, ebbing and flowing together in response to the day of the week, the weather, the moon, the stars, and anything else that one can imagine or not imagine. It is one organism of humanity working within what we’ve fashioned, guided by will and contorted by things completely and utterly out of our control. This is observable in long stretches of poor weather that will erode the stability of the collective psyche. In the winter, after it’s been cold for more days than people can remember and the violent heat of Aug becomes a fond memory, it is not uncommon for these crystalline chicaneries to brush up against you, emotionally perverted interactions with people and surroundings, and unlike the apparitions of summer that seem to take place behind a cloud of suffering and surrealism, the winter strums of fatigue and of hopes of hope.

photo: ©Graeme Mitchell, 2007

Let me share a such a tale of hope; I declare too, not an uncommon sort of a tale at that.

photo: ©Graeme Mitchell, 2007

A sane lady (sane vs. insane being a natural/common/necessary distinction) came to me on an otherwise empty subway platform late at night and began a civil conversation. After discussing the weather she said, in July my mother died, God rest her soul. I replied, I’m sorry to hear that. She continued, there has to be something more than this, God there has to be, this can’t be it, can it(?), I know she has to be in a better place, this, this (looking around the otherwise empty subway station) can’t be all there it (etc)… I stood there silent, looking at her, mesmerized by the rhythmic chant of longing that was her voice. I tell you, it was wrenching. I didn’t tell her how skeptical I was, how I attempted and failed (so far) to believe. And I didn’t need to b/c the next thing she said was, what if there isn’t more, maybe there isn’t, maybe this is it, we’re born to live and we live to die, and that means she (her mom) is resting, just resting, God rest her soul. Yes, I thought, the endless rest: click, like turning the TV off: nothing, not even black. Nothing.

This woman was amidst an existential journey, keeping company with great philosophers past and present and, likely, future. I hope she doesn’t abandon it – possibly it is a quest w/o resolve, but it is not w/o merit.

photo: ©Graeme Mitchell, 2007

Then, later, I’d seen a lady with a newborn in a carriage on the train. The lady was quietly in sobbing. Looking closer, I saw the newborn had medical equipment on the carriage and was noticeably disabled. Perspective and sadness and helplessness clenched their teeth and beat their fists, and I wanted so bad to tell her she was ok, that she was brave, that she was more at that moment than many people would ever become.

photo: ©Graeme Mitchell, 2007

Then, later, a man and a woman in Tompkins Sq Park, sitting on a bench with the chess players and derelicts, stopped me. They’d just been married 2 hours prior. They wanted me to photograph them and mail them a picture. I obligingly took their portrait while they proudly held their marriage certificate. Their happiness erased all themes of iniquity that the environment supposed.

photo: ©Graeme Mitchell, 2007

Et cetera.

photo: ©Graeme Mitchell, 2007

photo: ©Graeme Mitchell, 2007

photo: ©Graeme Mitchell, 2007