Bateau Mouche

A brief post from Prague (and Paris, thanks to Mimi)

Two Houses is a newsletter of stories about art, feminism, grief, and Time excavated from the Soho loft where I grew up. Posts are free and illustrated with the work of my long-divorced parents, the painters Mimi Weisbord and Lennart Anderson.

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This is a brief post, as we are in Prague. Our son Atticus is spending the semester at the Prague Film School, and we’ve come to visit him. Yesterday we spent the day walking on cobblestones and bridges across the River Vltava, gazing at tour boats moving under the archways, reminding me of the oil paintings I grew up with, Mimi’s Bateau Mouche, a series she painted of the Seine in Paris.

Mimi Weisbord. Bateau Mouche. 1960. Oil on canvas. 18 x 27 in. ©2024 Estate of Mimi Weisbord

In the loft I found the photograph she took which must have served as the basis for those oil paintings.

Yesterday was the fourth anniversary of her death. It feels perfect to be here drinking cappuccinos, knowing the pleasure it would give her that Atticus is pursuing his passions. She’d also love the Astronomical Clock in the square.

The Astronomical Clock with a mechanical clock and astronomical dial dates to 1410 and is mounted to the Old Town Hall in Prague.

Last night, I dreamed I was back in the loft. She was coming up in the elevator, and I was waiting to greet her in the hallway. But when she got off the platform, she was her late-stage self, anxious with dementia, letting me know she didn’t have time for a hug, agitatedly moving past me to get through the door. I grabbed her anyway, around the shoulders, hung on with my face to her neck, and woke up.

It’s the first dream like that I’ve had. I rarely dream about my parents. I credit this anniversary and Prague’s bateaux mouches, these “pleasure boats” (as Collins Dictionary translates), gliding across the River Vltava.