The Lighthouse

I went down to the lighthouse this evening. That place has always been particularly special to me. My father would take us kids down there after supper as often as once a week when it wasn't the dead of winter. He'd say, "Let's go to Chandler Hovey Park and throw rocks in the water!" One of my favorite pictures of me is age three, standing at the base of the lighthouse with a warm coat and hat on, smiling. It's a nice perspective--someone must have squatted down quite low to get it, as it looks up at my face and at the lighthouse rising above me.

The waves were crashing hard--there must have been a storm out to sea; we were supposed to get rain today, but got nothing much more than a low, gray sky--and the white foam shone in the dusk. I sat in the car, parked down the end of the lot looking out toward the open sea rather than the harbor and Beverly. It was too cold to wander out on the rocks and not be distracted and shivering, but warm enough to sit in the car for quite some time with the engine off and just be quiet.

Nobody else came the entire time I was there. I think sitting at the lighthouse tonight was the first time in a long, long time I have completely stopped and been where I was--not in my head, but in a place. My head is often in good shape, so I can be up there fairly comfortably with all my thoughts rattling around each other in a gentle way, and I don't tend to seek solace in places anyway. I've got my notebooks for that, and music, and driving around when the traffic isn't a hinderance (I used to love very early Sunday morning when the sun was coming up). I remember being a kid and knowing all the rocks and tree roots in the backyard, and finding them magical, but those days are long gone and have not been replaced.

Tonight I watched the waves, and after a while it came to me that I was the only human being on the entire planet witnessing them. This small, jagged bit of land on the edge of an ocean was mine, for this short time, because it had no scruple about sharing itself with me.

Dusk had turned to night by the time I left, and I thought of the edges of land and water all around the continents, and the people along them looking out over the expanse of dark water and choppy seas like mine, either now or yesterday or tomorrow, and there was some tremendous comfort in that. There's something about feeling deeply connected that gives me peace.



Edit: The next morning, the 8.9 earthquake and tsunami had devastated Japan. Which has nothing to do with me posting about coastlines and permanence the night before, but gave me a bit of a start. Coastlines can change. Nothing is permanent. Practice peace in the turmult. Easier said than done.