Camera Lucida
Sep 3, 2018 · 15 min read
My middle-aged memories of the house by the sea, like the photographs my family took there, have a veiled provenance. Caught amidst swirling instances of indecision, they seem of a piece with the frothy state of betwixt-and-between that gave the place its grain: sharp grass and velvet mud, rush of water and crunch of shell, rough-planked interiors and placid siding warped and torqued into long curves. The image of the place is vivid to me now—but its meaning is hidden, flickering and uncertain, boxed up and piled in shadows.
My father’s great-grandfather had purchased the house by the sea around the turn…

