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I’m drawn to houses as vessels of embedded histories. Not just as structures, but as places where time settles: in the grain of wood,

in the sound of wind passing through,

in the way light moves across a floor.

The smell of leaves.

The sound of a distant bell.

The way silence thickens by afternoon.
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Shel, which translates to "mirror", takes its name from the ancient royal capital of Ladakh.

The village was named after the palace, which casts a rippled reflection in the Holy Pond that lies below it.
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We walked the winding road to the house, along a river slipping over stones.

A drift of clouds floated across a starlit sky.

Our faces would catch the moonlight - glowing like the tips of the poplars swaying gently in the breeze.

The trees moved like clothes hung out to dry.

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I’ve always imagined living by the sea, drawn to the humbling vastness of how small it makes me feel.But somehow, in Ladakh, where scale is so apparent,

I felt more inward than ever and spiritually connected to the land. More awake, maybe. I saw a bird transcend a man-made border. A fox leapt over a petroglyph from an ancient
world.