Lullaby....Ginette

Ginette has been living in the East Village for 46 years in the same rent-controlled apartment, surrounded by foraged and forgotten treasures she has collected on the street. Ginette has become dangerously frail, her infirmity and pain acting to confine her and severely limit her ability to do the things she loves most: take walks through her beloved East Village, and socialize with the kaleidoscope of people who live and work in the neighborhood. She has recently suffered the loss of two pets, a dog and a cat, and these losses precipitated a steep decline in her health. She was born in Switzerland and survived a childhood characterized by severe abuse. Ginette has many stories to tell, fact and fiction blending and blurring into a beautiful poem of her life of great loss and adventure. She is rarely looked in on, surrounded by a gentrifying neighborhood and unable to care for herself, relying on old friends for some basic necessities. She suffers from chronic, excruciating pain as a result of pancreatic disease as well as pleurisy and a degenerative bone disorder. She is sometimes bedridden for days, unable to leave her apartment or care for her own basic needs. She is staunchly independent and refuses most offers of help. Her life of isolation and pain when confined to her apartment is starkly contrasted with the joy she radiates when she is able to make her way down two steep flights of stairs into the outside world.
Images created using the Fujifilm X100V, with a few exceptions, notated.

Portrait of Ginette
(A7riii)
Ginette in her studio apartment, surrounded by her collection. She has lived in her apartment for 46 years.
Ginette with a picture of herself as a young woman.
Days spent in bed with undiagnosed, acute pancreatitis.
Suzy had been abandoned in an old apartment building in Queens, left homeless by her owners when they moved. An old friend brought the cat to Ginette, who was eager to receive her after the recent deaths of two long-time pets.
Suzy began to react poorly to the changes in her life, and began to exhibit stalking behaviors toward Ginette in her bed, scratching her whenever she tried to get up or move. GFX 100
Portrait in a toy mirror. GFX 100
Morning
Exiting the apartment after days spent alone in her bed. Pain from arthritis. pleurisy and pancreatic disease creates intense isolation and fear of venturing out. If pain levels increase dramatically while out, Ginette gets stranded and must rely on passerby for help, or 911. Ginette generally refuses most offers of help. No one in her building pays attention to her, and she has no family to help her take care of herself or her apartment.
Steep and difficult descent to the street.
Ginette is completely different once outside her apartment.
Last shopping trip to say goodbye to Associated Supermarket before the location closed.
Ginette explained to all who tried to help that she was okay on this day , below freezing temperatures causing concern for onlookers as they observed her slow, painful walk down 12th street on her way to a doctor's appointment. She explained later that she was having intense heart palpitations, and the cold pavement helped to steady her.
Home for the evening.
Memories
Ginette asked for her favorite mirror as she laid in bed one Saturday. It's a Fisher-Price toy she found in the garbage over twenty years ago.
Ginette's apartment has no stove, oven, air conditioning, or modern bath/shower. The shower is especially treacherous, as it's in the living area and set two feet off the ground against a wall. She must climb in and out of the tiny cubicle. GFX 100
After dinner, making her way back to her bed, to watch French documentary television.
Suzy was eventually taken from Ginette's apartment because of her behavior toward Ginette, and Ginette's inability to provide care. She was abandoned in a parking lot in Queens to fend for herself by the elderly man who had originally brought her to Ginette Fortunately, she was taken in by someone a few days later.
A sequence of pictures of Ginette outside, smiling, gesturing and socializing.
My last sight of Ginette.
When I returned two days later, I found an empty bed. Her handbag, always with her when leaving the apartment, was on a little table, as well as her coat.
I had not anticipated Ginette's absence, although it was not unexpected. It took days to locate her in a downtown hospital.
Sony A 7riii.

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