#chalkoutsi

Bakery at Chalkoutsi, Greece

Ours was in Chalkoutsi; it belonged to my grandparents on my mother’s side. It was a small house with sunken bedrooms and a marble sink, built on a lot with pistachio trees along a dirt road that ran straight down to the sea. Although I wasn’t more than 12 years old when inheritance issues arose and forced us to sell it, I still remember what it smelled like. It’s a scent I can’t quite define, something between slight staleness – when we opened it at the end of spring for the first time of the year – mothballs, suntan lotion and the sea. I hardly ever encounter this smell nowadays but when I do, it’s like time stops and I’m eight years old again, trying to sleep in the afternoon with my shutters ajar, and the cicadas deafening me. It’s like my very own “madeleine dipped in tea” that awakens childhood memories in Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time.

#mm #lovely #chalkoutsi #home 🌤️before the storm 🌩️

mother of all waves by kabrianis

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