Museum memories

This essay participated in the March 2026 edition of the IndieWeb Carnival by James, which was about museum memories. It was the mid zeroes, and, barely an adult, I considered everything I did during that week in London a life-altering experience. Staying at the studio of my friend Titus, a fashion photographer I knew through a website I remember as mailfriends.com, I took in every second of my first solo trip abroad. My very first (and the high I’m still chasing) fish and chips rolled into a grease-covered newspaper. The Virgin Megastore in Piccadilly Circus where, a year later, we would spot one of Banksy’s fake copies of that Paris Hilton album. The weirdly polite British “excuse me” offered whenever I stepped on someone’s toes on the tube. Watching Hard Candy twice in a row, Mulholland Drive thrice. Looking back, everything from then feels like a museum. There is one moment that lingers twenty years later. Picture me entering the National Portrait Gallery for a photo exhibit, and…