I am with someone . . . Rob? . . . we are lost but it is not a crisis.  As we go around we pass through a commune type place, several small brownstone/townhouses which are only a few stories high.  Outside there are various people practicing yoga or taiji.  I get very excited and tell Rob that we should move here, although I immediately wonder what we will do about Romanov and Snowdoll, knowing our neighbors living below us would be none too happy and knowing we would have to take a first floor apartment.  He tells me there’s nothing to worry about because someday he is going to buy all of this and I can live in any of the townhouses or apartments I want because he’ll buy it all up.

We walk around but become separated.  I follow one guy who was doing yoga into him place and am drawn to his books among which I recognize Will and Ariel Durant’s Story of Civilization.  I comment on it, enthusiastically saying that they’re good although narrow at times and somewhat dated.  The guy looks at me puzzled, says something about not liking the fourth volume in the set.  I move on and out into a courtyard where another guy, one of the wealthier commune members, invites me to join him in his “space” which is behind a locked wall.  We walk through a gate and enter a lovely courtyard with manicured lawn, a fountain, and more.  This is in sharp contrast to the less affluent part of the outer section where I was before.  I look around and there are a series of houses that form a semi-circle around the central courtyard area.  I quickly surmise that the space seems more like a frat house or fraternity row area than it does the home of anyone important, a comment to which my tour guide takes offense.

I continue exploring, eventually leaving the frat boys behind, and end up in a clearly less affluent area of the commune.   The squalor is obvious, there is more darkness and muddiness about everything.  Fire escapes and bridges that run from one building to the other add to the cluttered and congested feeling of the area.  A young girl runs up to me, immediately followed by her slightly older sister.  “Please take me with you,” the little girl says.  “If you are chosen, please take me with you.”  I look down at her upturned face–strawberry blonde hair and a pale complexion with light colored eyes.  She is hungry for me to say yes, I can see it in the tension of her brow as she clings to me.  I look at her older sister who has the same hope and desperation but not for herself and I realize how much they need me but I also know that I will not be chosen.  I have already offended one of the leaders of the community and my being chosen as a representative of the community would be contingent on my being able to photograph and film well, neither of which I can promise.   And yet, I cannot tell this child anything but what she wants to hear and, looking at her older sister who cannot escape because she will never be chosen, I say “If I am chosen, I will take you with me.”  The relief on the older sister’s face is a confirmation that what these girls are suffering now will only get worse and my taking the younger girl is the only escape for them.  I then walk over to the young mother, who is barely more than an adolescent herself, and I give her a hug.  I whisper into her ear, “I will do anything and everything I can to help.”