Last night, after going out to check that the garbage cans were set out, I stopped in the first floor hallway and spoke with one of the girls downstairs, the dark-haired one, who was dressed in white long underwear for the cold night. She has pinned a large, brightly colored world map on the wall of the corridor. Resting on the opposite wall is a mattress. She said she likes to lean against it while she contemplates the map.

The “dark-haired girl”, Maggie, was one of two artists who lived in the unit below us, in a typically SOMA space she and her roommate had made their own as only artists can. It was well organized, brightened with their work. I believe the space had originally been a small grocery. You could still see the ridges left by a large walk-in freezer on the contrete floor. The streetside wall was a garage door . I think the real appeal of the apartment for them was the paved back garden with a covered shed they could use as a studio. Maggie created a darkroom there constructed of various doors she’d salvaged at construction sites in the city.

I remember the corridor where we talked as narrow, industrial gray, garishly lit. I can’t actually summon up the memory of that conversation, but I can see Maggie with her short brown hair, jolie-laide, slightly heavy faced and insouciant in her long underware. The map was a hint of things to come. Maggie was and still is a talented artist who now lives in Switzerland.