I pushed the heavy oak door with both hands, my shoulder leading the way, only to feel the jarring resistance of a frame that had no intention of moving forward. The brass sign, etched with the word PULL in clean, serifed capitals, sat at eye level, mocking the momentum of my mistake.
I stepped back, adjusted my cap, and pulled. The door swung open toward me, admitting a rush of cold salt air and the quiet, rhythmic humming of the town’s main street. It was a small failure, the kind that happens when the mind moves faster than the world, or perhaps when the mind expects the world to behave according to a logic it has already decided upon.
The Lighthouse Keeper’s View
Life at the lighthouse involves a great deal of waiting and an even greater deal of looking at things that do not change quickly. On the third floor of my quarters, I keep a desk made of reclaimed cedar. On that desk, there is a brass barometer, a Nikon F2 with a 50mm lens, a stack of weather logs bound in yellowing twine, and a laptop that feels increasingly like a foreign object in such a tactile environment.