Zeynep Beler

I’ve always loved this photo. In it, I must be four or five, so it’s ‘89-ish. I was obsessed with the Lambada two piece. I’d wear it now. Even though my face is obscured, you can see it (sort of) in the framed portrait hanging behind me under the staircase. That’s my father’s sock in the lower left corner. After he died my mother gave away his record player and vinyl collection (visible behind me), and I was mad for a long time. We kept turtles in the grimy half-filled tank you can also see behind me, and I remember they kept escaping (or dying, possibly). My parents would tell me they went back home to Singapore. Today my mother still has that framed portrait of me in her study.