I've got to do what my mom's apartment is.

Heavy, you have to kind of twist the top block, just the right way, the bottom block, and

kind of push with your shoulder.

The apartment's sold a few months ago, and so I have a couple of weeks to pack up all

my mom's things and move out.

I came up with this idea a couple of weeks ago while I've been going through my mom's

things to make this podcast about going through all the stuff that's left behind.

And I haven't done a podcast before, so I have to pair with me a little bit.

I just learned how to use this recorder.

The sound of the deadbolt's opening and then that sound of pushing the door open, those

are sounds I've always known.

When my mom died in June 2019, she was living on about as quiet as street in Manhattan

as you can find.

Geekman Place is by the East River on 51st Street.

It's a cul-de-sac of townhouses and pre-war apartment buildings, the kind with friendly

dormant and fussy co-op boards.

She lived in a two-bedroom apartment on the second floor of a ten-story building and had

a separate apartment below that she used as a studio to paint.

My dad bought the place a few years before he died in 1978.

I remember coming into this apartment when I was seven, eight, nine, ten years old.

My dad used it as an office.

He used it as a place to write.

...