House on Water

Here, on the island of Lesbos, Greece, my mother has spent every summer of her life. Here, in this House on Water, I have joined her since my birth. My baby pictures share boxes with albumen prints of great great grandmothers. A drawer is filled with salt-stained hats, another with dried out sandals in all sizes. Paperbacks with spines cracked by sand line bookshelves and spill onto the floor. A metal telephone with a dial and a receiver still rings in the hall. In the dusty garden, geraniums with enduring roots battle the weeds. My mother’s dresses hibernate in her closet until she revisits them in June. Each one marks another year and sparks a memory she sometimes shares. She models them and I photograph her. She follows my directions as I follow her into the past. Time has eroded recollections and foundations, the waves continue their splash against the walls, loosening the stones so that new life forms flow in and out. Clutter accumulates like algae. In the summers the same sun beats down on us, but we are not the same. Like water we mutate. But the sea is a mirror, and in it there is beauty, and nostalgia for the things that have moved on without us.