Behold

A Writer and a Photographer Team Up to Examine Motherhood’s Intricacies

I think the Earth from outer space is like this. Some kind of watery, indigo blue. Dark lines for rivers. Lighter blue for oceans. Did you know water tells the story of everything? Did you know how much there is of it? And then the green trees painted around the sea. The trees are harder. The ocean talks to me and tells me prehistoric things. The trees just whisper not yet

Copyright Winky Lewis

Photographer Winky Lewis remembers a time—her kids were still in diapers then—when motherhood seemed slow-going. But in 2013, as her daughter and two sons approached their teenage years, time was passing faster than she liked.

Her longtime neighbor, the writer Susan Conley, felt the same way. So they embarked on an experiment designed to help them register motherhood at a pace that better allowed for reflection and appreciation. The result is a book of stories and photographs, Stop Here, This Is the Place: A Year in Motherland, which Down East Books published in April.

Each week for two years, Lewis sent Conley a photographic dispatch from the world of the children in her life, which unfolded before her in small moments at home and the surrounding neighborhood. Conley, in return, sent back a short story written in response to the image.

“Getting those emails was like Christmas each week,” Lewis said.

Aidan calls this summer his palindrome life. It means his days unspool in some technicolor, slo-mo footage where it doesn’t matter whether he starts at the beginning or the end. The sweetness stays the same. He says words do this too—work backward in your mind: noon and radar and kayak. In boyland, where he lives, all the boys go into the house by the harbor and eat any food they can find. Then they go out. They swim in the ocean and lie on the rocks like seals again and again. Noon. Radar. Kayak. Then the boys climb high in the trees, where the wind is green and tangy. I’m the mother. I get to ask the boys what they hear when they’re up there. 

Copyright Winky Lewis

In 1977 I wanted nylons for Christmas and white Dallas Cowboy cheerleader go-go boots. The nylons Nana got me were aqua blue, and I wore them to school three days in a row until the runs down my thighs were like spider webs, and I still didn’t want to peel them off. By then I knew the cheerleader boots weren’t coming for me. They were part of a dream—something about what it meant to be 10 and waiting. But I studied those boots for clues during time-outs when the camera panned to the cheerleaders. They were knee-high with side zippers and the perfect chunky heel. 

Copyright Winky Lewis

Sometimes my bedroom feels like that Jacques Cousteau movie I saw in fifth grade where everything was underwater and you knew the blue sky was up there somewhere, but it was always out of reach. I’m older now. Maybe my heart is like that—a place you can’t ever go, but a room I still want you to enter where the doorknob is like a piece of my mother’s costume jewelry. 

Copyright Winky Lewis

The photos in Stop Here, This Is the Place, which are collected from the first year only, reflect a vision of childhood that’s peaceful and idyllic. Lewis’ children are friends with Conley’s sons, and they’re often seen running, climbing, and playing outside together in a picturesque landscape of green lawns and sunshine.

“They put up with me taking a lot of pictures. My kids, Susan’s, and the other kids on our street, are all very good sports about my camera,” Lewis said.

Lewis and Conley live on the same block in Portland, Maine, and though they saw each other regularly during the year, they chose to refrain from talking about the project throughout the process. 

“My instinct was just to sort of tuck it away with the photo from the week and await the next one. I think I didn’t want to ruin a good thing,” she said. 

Seeing a year of life and growth mapped out in the book is a little daunting, Lewis said, noting that the daughter in the photo on the first page is much smaller and younger than the one who appears on the last page a year later. But there’s no doubt in her mind that the experience was worthwhile.

“I really hope that we can shine a light on the importance of just a moment, to inspire a pause and some reflection. I find I don’t do enough of that, even in this beautiful little world I inhabit on my quiet little street in Portland. Working on this book with Susan opened my eyes to that,” she said. 

Things crawled out of the fire. Ghosts. Baby crows wanting food. My mother said something about Shakespeare and three witches. That whole summer the fire was bigger than me until my father tamed it. 

Copyright Winky Lewis

It got so I didn’t want to go to the circus. At first it was just the clowns who scared me. I told my mom how I thought they might kidnap me. I was 6. I was always talking about kidnapping because who does that? Something so mean? The rest was OK. The Arabian horses were better than OK. But then the elephants came out, and I knew we could never come back. There were three of them. Their trainer wore a green sparkly dress and cracked a whip by their feet. Then they climbed up on three red stools and looked so ashamed. Their eyes were like doe eyes. Like the eyes of kind old men, but much bigger, and they all said, Save me

Copyright Winky Lewis

There’s a graveyard down behind the house that isn’t really scary—a green field with lots of old stones. Hedgehogs live there and possum. The skunks come at night and sometimes we get crows in the trees. One crow says to the other, Stop here. This is the place. My street. My house. My mother, father, brother, brother. I still have to look down at my legs sometimes to make sure it’s really me, and when I forget who I am completely my mother reminds me. 

Copyright Winky Lewis

The movie I play inside my head is always in color, and the soundtrack is me humming underwater. 

 

Copyright Winky Lewis