The Weight of Walls

Stone holds heat long after the sun has retreated. It remembers the touch of hands that are no longer here, the weight of footsteps that have worn the path smooth. We build these labyrinths to keep the wind out, or perhaps to keep ourselves in. There is a safety in narrow passages, a comfort in knowing exactly where the wall begins and where the sky ends. In the north, we paint our houses to fight the grey, a desperate, bright defiance against the encroaching frost. Here, the colors are different. They are not a defense against the cold, but a conversation with the light. They speak of a life lived in the open, where the boundaries between home and street are thin, porous things. We walk through these spaces and imagine we are passing through history, but we are only passing through a moment that has already begun to fade. What remains when the paint peels and the stone finally settles into silence?

Marissa Tejada has captured this stillness in her image titled Old Town of Bright Colors. It is a place that seems to hold its breath, waiting for a season that never quite arrives. Does it feel like a home to you, or merely a place to pass through?