Heart Land Part 1

Life in Donja Selo has a slowness and quietness that is the perfect antidote to the noisy and congested city life in which most of us spend our time.

At the heart of this steady slow pace comes a peace and sometimes melancholy that is like no other. A kind of push pull of absence and presence which gently washes over you like a soft tide of memory. These few photos are evocative of that time spent lost in my own thoughts, sleeping and wandering Šoltas ‘lower village’.

Footnote

Donja Selo is the village in which my father Nedo was born and grew up until his early 20s. It sits in the interior of the island of Šolta which is located off the Croatian mainland city of Split and its name translates to ‘lower village’.

I recently returned with Mercy, Ned’s wife to fulfil a promise and to lay his ashes to rest in the family crypt at the cemetery church of St Martin on the south side of the village.