I often leave my front door open so the cat can stake out some territory on the top of the stairs. He does like to roam around.
Yesterday a real-estate agent with a prospective tenant stopped by. They saw my opened door and the young woman who was contemplating an apartment in the building wanted to ask me a few questions.
How's the super here, she asked. He's okay, I guess when you can find him. He doesn't live in the building though.
How's the heat in the winter? It's okay. I remember using the word okay several times.
She looked hopeful. Wanted to know about the neighbors. I didn't tell her that they generally came in young and fresh like her and left for something better after a year. There are about five or six of us in the building that have been crammed in here for a few years or more.
Then she made the mistake of asking if she could come in and look around. Okay, I said. And she took a few steps in and couldn't get much further because the vacuum cleaner hose was blocking the way. But she stepped over it. Took a look around. I could see her jaw drop. Not exactly the model apartment she was looking for.
She politely thanked me (doubt if I'll ever see her again) and left. I looked around after she left through her eyes. What I saw was a workshop. Cramped. Messy. Not a touch of anything remotely feminine, or homey to be seen.
I saw that every square inch has something to do with film or printing. I recently moved my liquid chemicals into the only kitchen cabinet because in the bathroom they were too close to the steam pipe. I left the photoflo bottle in there though thinking it's just soap.
Open the fridge: batteries, juice, some ancient olives - and film. I don't cook here anymore. There's no room.
The kitchen counter is just a mass of wires, extensions, scanners, and a printer (2200).
What was once a spice-rack has tri-x boxes in it.
Look up and you'll see the loft - more boxes with packaging supplies. I don't really mind the place until someone new and fresh stops by and then it seems like a peculiar way to live. I once read an article - I think it was in Lensworks about a photographer who didn't even have a bed and slept in a sleeping bag on the floor of his apartment. Looking at it from that point-of-view I consider myself well off.
I didn't always live this way. Before moving up here I lived in a five room apartment on the lower east side with my girlfriend. There was the one room for darkroom equipment and the rest of the house was like your usual house with a bedroom and living room. Sometimes we'd have guests over for dinner and open a table. I once did Thanksgiving at that house for both her and my family. When we split - I let her have the apartment (and was glad to get out - you know how those things go).
Sometimes, as I'm falling asleep - I think about what it would be like to just pick up and move someplace cheap and homey. Someplace with wide open skies and vast horizons. Big rooms where you could stretch out and watch the sunset through panormic windows.
The grass is always more saturated someplace else. There are people out there saying: Gee - wish I could do what Dave is doing. And then there's Dave thinking - I wish I could get a job at a filling station in Mayberry and come home - pat Opie on the head - and sit and smoke my pipe on the front porch. Mayberry and the photographer's life - all a dream. Might as well keep it beneath closed eyes.
