Light, Wind

They made me do it. All the people with their probing questions and glances and frowns and sighs made me accept a position as a house sitter—for a couple of months, no less. House-sitter for a lighthouse, that is. My job entails a single responsibility: ensuring the beacon is illuminated each night and promptly alerting for assistance if it faltered. The light. At times, it feels almost palpable. Once the darkness really settles in, I watch the light make its rounds. With each rotation, it casts its glow over the water, illuminating waves of varying magnitude, the froth dancing upon them...

When the light transitions from the water to the land, it touches the rugged cliffs looming behind the lighthouse. The luminous hand at the end of the ray brushes over the spiky silhouette and with every turn shows the same unwavering stone that has been there for centuries. It does not change, despite being touched by the light, in a steady rhythm. Although every spot looks the same all through the night, as shown roughly every minute, in my head there is always the thought of what might be. A multitude of possibilities emerge before my eyes of what could go on, while the spot lies in utter darkness - the wildest scenarios unseen and unknown. The anticipation of what might be revealed the next time the ray of light is back in particular is riveting to me. Depending on my day, my state of mind, my daydreams it can be the most terrifying thing jumping at me, as soon as revealed by the light or the most wonderful, mysterious, even romantic start of a story that comes to life in a split-second. My mind is in constant motion, never at rest, and I like it. Kind of like with the beacon in the lighthouse – it is frightening what might happen if the motion comes to a halt.

What I see is usually accompanied by the oh so steady sound of the moving bulb. Swoosh… swoosh… swoosh. Sometimes there is a whistling sound from the wind outside. But tonight, there is no swoosh. I can hear it in my mind from weeks of getting used to it, but it is overlain by the most forceful winds I have ever experienced. As I gaze at the spot where the light first kisses the cliffs, that is illuminated ever so briefly again and again, it seems like the wind has an effect. Logically, I know it is impossible - the wind does not reach the lamp or the fixtures within the lighthouse and there are no grasses or rubble outside that could show any movement. And yet, there is undeniable movement.

The minutes tick by, and the wind intensifies, carrying anything loose with it for miles.  My spot – just rough stone, being there - is busier than it ever was. Active, bustling with unseen activity – without any movement whatsoever. It is all a shift in perception of the steadfast thing. The more relentless the wind becomes, the louder my thoughts get, whipped around my skull, meandering through the windings of my brain. I find myself shouting at the wind, and it seems to scream back at me with a force I take personally. There is no one here but me, my thoughts and my daydreams. There seems to be no way the tempest would rage outside the cylindrical walls of this weathering structure, if there was not a soul to witness it.

Sitting here, not moving a muscle, it is astounding to think that the wind is able to somehow penetrate the barriers of glass and stonewalls, my skin and the walls of my arteries and veins to violently play with my blood like it does with the masses of water outside. A direct link between the moving air outdoors and the adrenaline so deep inside of me. My mind is always active, I cannot seem to slow it down on a normal day, nor do I want to, but this is a whole new level. The turmoil within me feels so intense, it is as if it could be quantified on the Beaufort scale.

I feel like the storm outside and me are now not only screaming at each other any more, we are fighting. Back and forth, unforgivable, and relentless. My whole body is tense now. Still sitting inside the lamp room of the lighthouse, somehow not knowing if I am the one jolting at the components of the building, trying to rip it apart, while the light does what it always does, moving in circles, calmly, steadily, predictable. The beam of light finds its way out, but the wind does not come in, at least physically. Kind of.

In a final surge, everything escalates. I unleash every ounce of energy within me, my fists whirling in a frenzied dance, my words sharp as knives, and my movements resembling a child in a tantrum. At least that is what it feels like to me. Factually, I am still not even moving, except now my muscles are tense. Jaw clenched, fists clenched and sweaty, heart pounding in my chest and up in my throat. When there suddenly is this sensation like being picked up by a tornado after trying to hold onto something, anything for dear life. I am thrown around without control, feeling the centrifugal force and being completely at the element’s mercy and not the master of myself any more. I am starting to feel dizzy and more and more powerless. I am being consumed entirely by the chaotic whirlwind, like I am weightless. Until I feel weightless and weaker with every passing moment. I plunge into an all-consuming exhaustion, like being thrown up by the invariably raging tornado and being left there to take my lasts weak breaths.

I awaken to a faint glow, lying on the floor of the lamp room, and a wave of grief crashes over me with the force of a thousand waterfalls. I start sobbing, tears streaming down my face, my arms hugging my legs tightly.

After what seems like hours, the involuntary sobs die down and what’s left is a different kind of weariness, a tight throat, and a dull headache. Slowly, I rise to my feet, steadying myself against the railing for support. I attempt to draw in a deep breath, but my heart feels constricted, my lungs refusing to expand fully. There is a strange silence in my head, like my skull was emptied, and the one thing left in there is a sadness. It is not just a word or passing thoughts but a profound concept, kind of abstract but undeniable. For a fleeting moment, I stand suspended in this vacuum of despair, barely clinging to my sense of self amidst the overwhelming sorrow.

I move towards the window, a sense of emptiness gnawing at me. The winds of the previous night have dwindled to a gentle breeze, caressing my left forearm tenderly. Tears well up in my eyes once again, but this time they flow with a subdued calmness, a deep-seated sadness devoid of the earlier despair. My muscles ache from the turmoil of the night before, but beneath the physical discomfort lies a pain rooted in this grief. I had not allowed myself to feel it, had not given the thoughts any chance to surface. I buried everything by piling stories, thought experiments, fantasies, analyses, vicious circles of thinking about actually unimportant problems higher and higher. Piling on top of one seemingly short and simple truth: loss. Now it seems the winds gave everything they got to sweep it all away forcefully and let this simple but so fundamental fact take room to unfold into cascading layers of consequences of that very fact.

Feelings and thoughts branch out and spread into every corner of my mind, every bit of my heart, my bones. Like the grief takes root, weaving its tendrils through the very essence of my existence with a relentless grip. I did not want this, but there was just no way around it. With a choked throat, I attempt to utter words for the first time in weeks.  I feel the breeze on my face, like someone using a dry brush to gently stroke lines and circles on my skin, and hear my own hoarse words „I cannot express how fucking much I miss you. “

The acoustic waves of my words ride the gentle wind and dissolve into nothingness. Just like your future did. As much as I tried to not let it be real to me, in this moment I feel the reality of it hitting me like a freight train that leaves me breathless and petrified. After a while somehow the suffocation of everything to come, never again with you there, is accompanied by an infinitesimal portion of a liberating breath, bringing some of that vitally important oxygen. Not thinking about you and everything I am missing and will be missing in order to shield myself did not do you justice, and for that, I am sorry. In hindsight, though, I think I could not have survived any other way. Right now, I cannot say for sure if I will truly outlive the magnitude of all this pain and fear and pointlessness, but I will try.