One More Lighthouse

Looking out from the sunporch windows, I see the white capped ocean and think how perfect to live by the sea.

There is something soul stirring about a house on the water. The sheer magnificence and peace of the ocean, the silhouettes of the boats at rest, the sunsets and dawns, all call to something central in our beings. There are no beginnings or endings to the sea. It teems with life and joy, it gives us a clearer perspective, it is legend. It has no favorites and its company is free for the asking. There is, I can hear my grandmother telling me, no better friend and no deadlier enemy. She is thinking of all the fisherman, young and old, who left harbor before sunrise and never came home. She is thinking of wreckage and bodies pulled from the sea, of funerals and the sorrow of the families left behind. Those who choose the sea, she once said to me, really don't have much choice. It's in their blood and they have to go.

Those who love the ocean, I think, have the same feeling. There are places we are meant to be, places that heal and restore us, places where we are truly at home. Until we get there, there is a kind of vague restlessness to us, a mild sense of something not exactly right. We seek but do not find until - if we are very fortunate - we come to live by the water.

Despite my dreams, I think it likely that I will not see the ocean again, will not stand in Uncle Willie's pasture and look toward the horizon again, will not play in the tidepools of the coves or collect driftwood or watch the boats returning through the passage. The pirate ships and pleasure boats of my memory may have to do.

Still, I plan for one more ferry ride with Cap, one more taste of haddock, one more night watching the lights from St. Mary's Bay and always, one more lighthouse.