Before I had words for it, I could feel it, the stillness, the weight, the way some places quietly speak.
There was a place my parents worked for a period of time when I was a kid, a small shop tucked into an old town that still lingers in my memory. Even now, it comes back to me in vivid flashbacks, fragments of light, scent, stillness. I didn’t understand it then, but I always felt something different about that place. The air felt heavier, quieter, almost like time moved differently there. Founded back in 1690, the town had seen generations pass through its narrow streets. But it wasn’t just age that gave it weight it was what had happened there. On July 21, 1942, during the Second World War, the final expulsion of Jews from the town took place. They were sent to labor camps, and eventually, a camp was built nearby. It’s estimated that around 1,000 Jews died there. That shadow never fully left. It seemed to live quietly in the buildings and the cobbled streets, written into the cracks of time itself.
Still, life had continued, and at the heart of the town was its market square, though I didn’t really wander around alone. I wasn’t allowed to. What I remember was the square: old, worn down, with crumbling walls and buildings that looked like they hadn’t moved since the past had frozen them in place. Time didn’t seem to flow there like it did elsewhere. It just… sat. Still. Watching.
I remember the bakery across the street where I used to run to get jam-filled croissants and sweet cheese buns. Bread tasted different back then. There was also a quiet bookstore, and just a few blocks away, an old train station, one of those places that felt untouched by time. It looked as though it hadn’t been rebuilt since the war: old walls, faded signage, and a dusty information window in a place that hardly seemed open to the public. And yet, from there, you could travel across the country. There was something about that contrast, something raw and real. Definitely one of those early life experiences that stays with you, long after the details begin to blur.
There was a mirror shop just around the corner unassuming from the outside, but unforgettable once you stepped inside. It was old, filled with that unmistakable scent of dusty air-aged wood, cold stone, and something that felt like time itself. Light would pour through a large, slightly darkened window, catching the dust in the air and bouncing off the old mirrors and worn wooden furniture. That smell and that light are still etched in my senses.
While other kids ran off to play, I was always drawn to that shop. I didn’t know why it wasn’t the kind of place a child usually wandered into. But I’d find myself slipping inside, pulled in by something I couldn’t name. I would get lost in there in a dreamlike way. It was quiet, dark, and mysterious, filled with forgotten objects and fading reflections. Sometimes my mum had to come and get me. I’d lose track of time in that place, completely absorbed, while she was next door, wondering where I’d disappeared to. The mirror and old furniture shop wasn’t just a place it was a feeling. And somehow, without ever trying to be, it became one of the most vivid, meaningful spaces in my early memory.
The owner of the shop was an old lady. I don’t remember her name, but I remember how she’d let me sit and quietly watch her work, crafting mirror frames by hand, turning forgotten objects into something beautiful again. She never seemed to mind me being there. In fact, it felt like she somehow understood that, in a strange way, I belonged there in that quiet, dark corner of the shop, just absorbing everything. I remember one day, she gave me a small round mirror as a gift. It had an odd green frame. I treasured it for years. Later, during my teenage years, I came across it again, tucked away between my things. And each time I held it, it pulled me right back into that moment, into that dusty shop, the still air, the quiet kind of magic that surrounded it all. I could never quite explain what drew me there, or why that place continues to live so vividly in my memory.
That old mirror shop wasn’t just a shop, even if I didn’t understand it at the time. It held a different kind of silence. Surrounded by mirrors and old furniture, I felt connected to something, layers of time, quiet craft, and solitude. That little shop reflected parts of me I didn’t yet know how to name.
That town… there was something still about it. Not just quiet, but motionless, as if it were holding its breath. People often said it wasn’t a place for kids to hang around or anywhere you wanted to be after dark. There were whispers, stories, something dark, maybe even haunted. And maybe it was. But to me, it was something else entirely. Strange, yes. But also familiar in a way I couldn’t explain. Odd, yet deeply rooted in my memory. Today, most of that place has been renovated and now attracts people. It’s no longer haunted or abandoned but full of life. Small businesses thrive, and there’s even a lovely little park in the middle.
Through the years, as I grew older, I found myself returning to that place in my mind again and again. Maybe that was part of learning to listen to what can’t be heard, to see what can’t be seen. Perhaps it was during that time that a part of me began to slowly unfold my sensitive side strangely drawn to that feeling. I guess I was always a little different from the other kids, drawn to stillness, to silence, to the odd places others passed by unnoticed. So there I was, talking to an old lady, fascinated by her work, the old items in her workshop, and the lingering smell of the past.
I guess I’ve always been drawn to the raw, to the unfiltered reality of things. Even as a kid, it was never about perfection or polish, but about real stories, real people. I could sense the feeling of a place, its energy. I noticed the light, the smell, the way a space could hold memory. Maybe, on some unconscious level, I already knew. Maybe I could feel the weight of the town’s history… the old lady’s quiet story, her passion, her small shop filled with forgotten things made beautiful again.
Often, the memories stick with me in ways I can’t fully explain, like something attached to me that comes and goes. They don’t always show up in order, just randomly, in quiet moments. And what they bring isn’t a full story, but a strong feeling something lingering beneath the surface. A sense of the unknown that haunts me… but also something oddly fascinating. I didn’t know the full history of that place back then. To me, it was just a small nearby town where my parents happened to work. And yet, somehow, it found place in my mind one I return to from time to time.
I didn’t realise it then, but something from that time spoke to a part of me I hadn’t met yet. Not just memory but something quieter, deeper. Maybe it reached my soul before I even had the words for it. All I know is that it stayed with me in the way I notice things others don’t, in the way I feel places more than I understand them. That version of myself I carry it all. Not because I choose to, but because somehow, it chose me.