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I spent my childhood summers in a small house in the Polish countryside, right on the Polish-Ukrainian border. Built in 1962, it was where my great-grandparents lived, where my mother spent her childhood summers, where my grandma lived from the 1990s onward, and the place I learned to call home, too. My grandma would tell me stories from summers past, of all the generations who lived here before me. Filled with family heirlooms and ancient artifacts, the house itself became a relic—suspended in time. Life here was simple—with no distractions from the outside world the isolation felt freeing. The summer days were unbearably hot, flies buzzing, and dampened by cool nights, thick with mosquitos. Long walks through the countryside and afternoon swims in the river “Bug” (Pronounced Boo-g) filled my days, year after year, and I found comfort in the familiarity of it all. Maybe that’s why—one year after the house was finally sold—I feel this gaping hole in my soul, as if all these memories were locked away with it. Through months of my own labor, recreating this house in miniature—brick by literal brick—I hope to preserve the ephemerality of nostalgia, and transform it into something others can experience for themselves.