never have been, thankfully. I’ve always been the type of person that was so very happy for anyone doing what it was that I wanted to do; experiencing the things that are on the list of things to do before I die … important moments that I can only hope to be a part of. That is no different now. Although being in New York City and seeing the tree at Rockefeller Center on my birthday is on the top five things to do before I die, I could not be more happy for my sister. She is there. She and my brother (my sister’s husband), walking the streets, looking in the windows, stopping to listen to the saxophone player and then putting a bill in his case because he is just damn good.
And though I don’t see her walking into the seedier part of town just to get to a little hole-in-the-wall Italian joint, (I do, however, remember this place in China Town with a secret door and weaponized thugs where she tried to have me killed over a purse), a place that treats a tourist like a tourist and a local like a local; a place that I would do my very best to make friendly so that, even though I was a tourist, they would treat me like a local. I’d have my camera out, hoping they, whoever they at that particular moment would be, would grace me with a few moments of their life in my lens. I have so many lives in my lens. I look back at the photographs sometimes and simply sob with gratitude that I was allowed to be a part of a life moment, at some time, in some place.
Yes, I hope she is having the time of her life, she and her husband, as they enjoy the beauty of New York with the drab streets and bare trees. I hope she takes a photograph of the “virtual billboard” in Times’ Square, not really because she wants to but because she knows I would. I hope she enjoys the subway and takes in the sounds and sights as she flies through the tunnels. I hope the late Autumn, Christmas ready New York is everything she hoped it would be. I hope, beyond all rational thought, that she has the best time of her life. We may not always see eye to eye, but when it comes to the sticking point, I know who to call.
another of my many mottoes ~ Wherever you are, whatever you do, do it for yourself; otherwise your life will always be lived vicariously and the real experience will never be your own. Dreaming is dreaming, irregardless of the dream.
A Photographer's Heart 