hanging memory

When we met for lunch, it felt like meeting someone you already know, someone who understands the silences between sentences. Two West Indian women, both with families that live surrounded by the sea, both building lives that don’t always follow a linear path.

I’d been drawn to Nadia’s work for years, but it was one particular piece—an image of a child jumping into the sea, their foot just touching the water in the split second before the plunge—that stayed with me. The water glistens, tiny spotlights flickering across the surface. It’s a brief moment of bliss, a perfect balance between floating and falling.

Her work moves between the real and the imagined—capturing the sea and landscapes we know, but also the feelings of belonging, memory, and identity that ripple beneath the surface. For me, it holds something deeper—a reflection on what we carry with us and what we learn to release.

Hanging this photograph in my not-yet-finished home felt like an act of claiming. Not waiting for everything to be perfect or in its place. It was a way of saying this is my story, this is my space.

Identity isn’t just about remembering; it’s also about knowing what to let go of—old expectations, norms, and boundaries that no longer serve us. Nadia’s work, and our conversation, reminded me how proud we can be of where we come from while still defining what’s possible for who we are.

That child caught between floating and plunging—it’s not just a moment captured in time. It’s the feeling of being suspended between the past and the future, between holding on and letting go.

—L