Dwell Time by Rosa Lowinger
Rosa Lowinger is an art and architectural conservator, a restorer of decayed, damaged surfaces. She’s also a fine prose writer. Lowinger’s latest book, Dwell Time, is about restoration of relationships as well as artifacts. In art conservation, “dwell time” refers to the time it takes to clean the damage, “using only methods and materials that do their job without inflicting damage.”
Dwell Time toggles back and forth between Lowinger’s professional career and family stories—interesting ones. They were middle-class Jews in Cuba at the time Castro seized control. Her parents cautiously welcomed the revolution, only to pack and flee as oppression grew heavier. Her mother had been an orphan and didn’t reach adulthood without damage. As a teenager, Lowinger wanted to escape her Miami Cuban refugee existence, but she was allowed the slow process of restoration to occur, guided by the same patience needed when repairing a damaged, weathered statue. “Growing means accepting, not forgetting.”
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