First, I want to admit to you that I’m in a long-distance love affair.

With New York City.

It’s a magical place for me — full of energy and possibilities and history and renowned architecture. Just walking around Manhattan makes me happy. I’m really into photography and constantly visualize photographs whether or not my camera is handy. NYC is full of great photographic moments. Here’s one such moment I captured in Washington Square Park, one of my favorite places:

On my second trip to NYC, my friend Leah and I were walking in Chelsea. It was about 6 p.m. Two scantily clad young women and a guy were arguing. In particular, the blond with twig-like arms and low-slung skinny jeans stumbled toward us, drunk, crying and yelling at her friends. She appeared to be incredibly distraught.

“I just want to die,” she screamed.

With the bitterness of a scorned woman, I said “I bet this drama is over a man. Let’s go talk to her.” We’ve all been there, right, ladies?

Leah’s motherly instinct took over. We ended up talking to the anorexic woman (let’s call her Marie) from Denmark, sitting on the sidewalk, for about an hour as the sun set. Leah stroked Marie’s hair and arm and listened to her plight. She explained why suicide wasn’t the answer, that the guy wasn’t worth Marie’s time. Marie had been hospitalized for anorexia for six months. We knew she was in bad shape.

Marie planned to move into a house in Brooklyn, where she lived for free with other young women. The only requirement was to hang out at the owner’s bar a few times a week. I asked “Do you have to have sex with the customers?” She said “no”, however, I knew. Later I learned that my hunch was probably right on. Sex trafficking is a big problem in NYC.

I was most impressed with Leah’s compassion towards this stranger. While I would have stopped to talk and listen to the woman, I probably wouldn’t have touched her. I have to know a person fairly well to go that far. Haaa.

We ended up persuading this young bony model to eat dinner at a nearby diner. Marie first ordered a wedge of iceberg lettuce topped with plain tuna fish. “I don’t care if I get fat!” she repeated in her Danish accent. “It doesn’t matter” as she ordered a piece of chocolate cake. To “get fat”, this woman would have to eat a cake a day for two months. Leah and I tried not to laugh.

Marie’s friend from Brooklyn picked her up from the diner, and Leah and I caught a cab back to the hotel.

We spent three hours trying to help Marie, and yet I knew her future looked bleak. A few weeks later, Marie texted Leah a photo of her with the sleazy boyfriend. Some lessons are hard to learn.