Yes it's summer time, but the living ain't easy. Actually it's not too bad. But it is extremely hot here in New York - and according to the weather reports, we are just coming into a heat wave. .

Today I was going to write about the colours of New York; for despite New Yorkers insisting that they dress in shades of black in winter, and shades of white in summer, it really is quite a colorful place.

I was going to write about the different colours and the different ethnic groups that make up the multi-cultural city of New York. Last week I took the photo on the left to show some typical Manhattan commuters. I was waiting for the man in the wheelchair to get on the bus. We have "kneeling buses" here, that allow the steps to move and expand in such a way as to form a platform, upon which wheelchairs can roll. The platform is then raised to be level with the bus floor and the wheelchair plus passenger moves into a designated area where the wheelchair is secured.

While this is going on, the waiting commuters must wait. And that is what they are doing in the photo.

But I wasn't in writing mood, and instead I decided to go through old photos, previously unorganised in different boxes, some containing only chemist folders from long ago, many containing only negatives, their photos having been lost or given away.

I categorise the photos. Some are scanned and put on my Online Album where I have a private area for family and friends. Others are placed in ziplock bags and labeled as to their category.

Now this organizing is quite uncharacteristic of me. Not that I'm terribly untidy, but I usually just chuck photos and travel souvenirs into boxes, thinking one day to organize them.

Looks like that day has come!

I worked on this for a few hours and was about to put away the ziplock bags and close down my Online Album, when I noticed a new email message. It was from an old friend and lover. We keep in touch.

"Going, going, almost gone to China. Tomorrow in fact to look for my grandfather's tomb in Shanghai."

What the? This person who way back when, never showed the slightest interest in his extended family, and who scoffed at his British ancestry. My English-Australian lover of the sixties! But I do recall him telling me that his grandfather died in China when reasonably young - bitten by a mad dog.

Probably during the Boxer Rebellion, the nasty bit of me muses.

My daughter is fascinated by the sixties. When she was twelve she used to yell at me for making her miss out on them. "It isn't fair!" she'd scream. "I missed out on them because you didn't have me in time."

Such logic. But if she couldn't be there, at least she could see some photos. I'd made a special category just for her. Hence the "Sixties" labels on one of the ziplocks and on the Online Album.

And who had I catalogued today? The very person who emailed me about looking for his grandfather's tomb in Shanghai. Here we are at Wilson's Prom in the sixties.

Is it growing older that leads us to take an interest in old photos and long-dead relatives? Well I suppose when you are teenagers you don't HAVE old photos and don't even know about your long-dead relatives.

Personally I find it depressing.

Much of my cataloging I'm doing for other people. I have photos of my parents in the New Theatre in Melbourne in the forties. Photos of my mother and her girlfriends with soldiers during World War II. I feel these must be preserved.

And then there is Ebon. She just loves those sixties photos.

But it occurs to me, that like my friend looking for the grave of his grandfather in China, a man I think he never even met, that as we get older we try to establish our place in the scheme of things. It is as if we were sending a message to generations to come. This is where we were. This is what we were.

And looking back at the long ago photo of me and my friend in the sixties - summer at Wilson's Prom, from the vantage point of summer in Manhattan, it is as if the 'me' is two entirely different people. The 'she' of the photo could have no knowledge of the 'she' typing this in New York. And the 'she' in New York has very little knowledge of 'her'.

Till next time,


Kate Juliff
New York
July 2006