That’s where it all begun.
The lighthouse.
As a kid I had always been mesmerised by that light brushing the ocean in front of the house, appearing and disappearing at the exact same rhythm night after night, year after year. It made the night alive when everything else was still. It went away, but it always came back. It was part of my world, part of me.
When I started sailing I would see a lot of them from the sea, blinking lights in the middle of the darkness, but somehow it never made me think of my light. Blinking lights were all they were to me, as useful yet insignificant as a street sign.
I had never pictured my light as a blinking light in the night, it was something entirely different, something unique. It had a presence, an essence. It was not an object but an event.
I never actually went close to the lighthouse, never tried to get to the source of that magical light which was inhabiting my nights. It was probably less than a mile away from the house, but I never ventured in that direction. I liked it from where I was, coming to me.
Sometimes I would sit with my back to the sea, facing the light, looking at it come and go, come and go, come and go. Waiting for it to come back, somewhat anxious. But there it was again: coming and going, coming and going, coming and going. Three times. From right to left. Never missing a beat, never disappointing, always coming back. It felt like it was looking at me, seeing me, almost touching me.
Other times I would face the sea and witness the same rhythm, but that time left to right and somewhat entirely different, so much larger and getting lost in the horizon.
The horizon was always empty. It was the same landscape I had known since forever, always the same darkness, always the same stroke of light.
Until it wasn’t.
One day it wasn’t empty anymore. Something appeared, a shapeless silhouette distorting that view that I knew so well.
I couldn’t keep my eyes off it.
Here it was; a dark spot, appearing and disappearing with each stroke of light, the exact opposite of a blinking light.
It started getting bigger, becoming clearer, taking shape.
It was coming closer.
I looked at it come to shore — come to me — without moving, without thinking, without breathing almost.
Of course it was a boat, as I had seen hundreds of them before, but I had never seen one here, never seen one come to shore.
The first thought to finally reach my mind was that from that boat, my light was only a blinking dot in the darkness. The light that had comforted me for all those years, this presence so familiar and unique, that rhythm that was almost like a beating heart, was just a lighthouse. Realising that that light had a function, that it wasn’t just there like I was there, without rhyme or reason, it broke my heart. I think my childhood ended in that moment.
